


Equivalence

by thegraytigress



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 11:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7312558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegraytigress/pseuds/thegraytigress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tony wakes up, he wakes up to a nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Equivalence

**Author's Note:**

> **DISCLAIMER:** _Iron Man_ , _Captain America: The First Avenger_ , and _The Avengers_ are the properties of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.
> 
>  **RATING:** T (for language, adult situations)
> 
>  **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I came up with this idea a year ago, and it has taken me this long to finally write it. It's probably the most technically difficult story I have ever done. This fic takes place in happy land and happy times, before CA:TWS and AoU and CA:CW, when we just had six Avengers and they weren't trying to kill each other. I'm kinda ignoring all that angsty stuff in Phase 2 of the MCU to make my own angsty stuff. So Superhusbands for the win!
> 
> Many, many thanks to the awesome [Winterstar](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar) for helping me out with beta-ing this, and special thanks to faith2nyc for giving it a much-needed read. I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for reading!

“Iron Man, _look out!_ ”

Steve’s desperate cry blasted through Tony’s helmet, and he whirled in midair.  He wasn’t fast enough, and something – _a chunk of building?_ – smashed into his suit.  Down he went, colliding violently with the street, pain racing up his side.  The HUD flashed with dizzying warnings as he rolled.  He gasped and tried to push the crumbling cement off and turn and _get up_ because holy shit the aliens were _coming at him_ –

“Tony!”

There was a blur of blue, the flash of a familiar silver star, and Steve landed right in front of him.  He’d obviously jumped down from the building these bastards were currently attempting to dismember, and he caught what would have probably been a killing blow of their energy weapons on his shield.  Steve pushed back, the thick muscles of his thighs and back flexing as he threw all his strength into it.  Tony growled in irritation.  Ignoring the throbbing along, well, _everywhere,_ he pushed the debris off and took this gift of a few seconds to get back to his feet.  Iron Man whirred and compensated for the damage, and JARVIS powered up the palm repulsor cannons in a flash.  And, in a flash, he was standing at Steve’s side and blasting the hell out of the bad guys.  It felt more than a little rewarding.  “Yeah, take that, assholes!”

Steve laughed and pivoted, reflecting another red bolt from these things’ guns (Tony couldn’t lie – he was looking forward to getting one of the weapons back to the lab and pulling it apart to play with it).  “I guess you’re okay then?” Steve asked.  There wasn’t hiding the actual concern in his voice.

Nor was there any denying the fact that, despite the fact that the HUD was trying to get him to pay attention to his own bumps and bruises, Tony was scanning Steve for injuries instead.  None.  “Fine, Cap.  Never better!”

There wasn’t much time to say anything else, not with these aliens (some sort of lobster things?  Tony had no freaking clue.  Lobster things with claws and laser guns.  He still wondered sometimes how this was his life) bearing down on them.  Steve threw his shield, and Tony unleashed another salvo of repulsor blasts.  They moved in perfect concert, Steve snatching his shield on its return and pushing into the line of bad guys coming at them while Tony stood back and guarded him.  He let loose a wide repulsor beam from his right gauntlet, sweeping over the group and knocking quite a few back into a smoldering mess.  He watched Steve fight a second, watched how strong and quick he was, and couldn’t help but scan him one more time.  “He is fine, sir,” JARVIS reminded with a touch of fond humor in his tone.

“Screw you, J,” Tony retorted, trying not to smile.  “Check in, guys!  Where’re we at?”

“I’ve got the rest of the civilians out,” Natasha declared over the comm link.  “Taking the final group down Park now!”

“The last wave is heading toward you guys!” Clint shouted.  Tony turned and scanned the tops of the surrounding buildings.  It was a tad difficult to see through the smoke, but he spotted Hawkeye all the same, perched aloft and loosing arrows in a frenzy and keeping an eye on the alien ship thing where it had landed in Madison Square Park.  At least this time the aliens of the week had decided to invade close to home, which was nice because he had work to do (a lot of work) and other activities required his attention (like _finally_ spending some time with Steve because _holy hell_ their schedules hadn’t lined up in the slightest over the last couple days).  When the call had come in for the Avengers to assemble, it had interrupted one of said activities (needless to say since it had come while Steve was half naked on their bed underneath him and in the middle of the feverish kisses of a mid-afternoon rendezvous, well, Tony had almost ignored it.  Almost.  But he was married to Captain America, and Captain America with his “gotta save the world – we’re the Avengers and it’s our duty” crap had forced them out the door with matching cases of raging blue balls).  So the sooner they got done with this nonsense, the better.

Clint’s next shout got his head back in the game.  “I count about a dozen!”

“I see them,” Thor declared.  Tony saw the demigod take flight down the way a bit, his hammer whirling as he jetted toward the incoming enemies.

Tony shot at another lobster thing when it shrieked and charged at him.  He sidestepped a swipe of its massive claw, returning a blow of his own.  Damn, these things were tough.  They had some sort of chitin exo-skeleton, and his weapons could blast through it, but it was getting to be draining.  Brute force seemed to be the way to go.  “Hulk, you think you could–”

There was a roar and a flash of green and the alien tormenting him disappeared in a squish of shattered body parts and goo against the building front across the way as the Hulk stampeded down the street.  The beast gave another excited howl and leapt high to go help Thor with the next attack.  “Okay,” Tony said with a laugh.  “Off you go.”

Steve landed next to him, smashing through the another lobster.  He rammed the edge of his shield into its thorax with a grunt (and a ridiculous amount of force), and it punched right through the alien’s protective armor.  More slime splattered his already grime-covered uniform.  Tony drove the staggering alien back and put it out of its misery before returning to Steve’s side.  “This stuff is disgusting,” Steve said with a wince, lifting his shield and watching the glop fall to the shattered asphalt beneath them.

“Save some for Bruce to look at,” Natasha ordered.

“Let Egon get his own slime,” Clint joked.  Another roar shook the buildings, and an explosion of lobster innards burst up into the air from down the way.  “When he’s done smashing.”

Tony winced at the hideous spray.  “Gross.”

Natasha’s voice turned sly.  “Come on, you babies.  It can’t be all that bad.”

“Says she who isn’t currently covered in it,” Steve quipped, and he whipped his shield to the side to sling some more of the goo off only to fling it at Tony’s chestplate instead.  He winced.  “Sorry.”

“I’m not the one who assigned me to evacuation detail,” Natasha teased.

Tony couldn’t resist himself.  He really couldn’t.  He didn’t even try.  “Hey, Steve, the plus about you getting absolutely coated in this revolting alien guts is that when we’re done here, you can take a long, hot shower.”  He grinned even though no one could see it.  He knew Steve would be able to _hear_ it just from the tone of his voice.  “And I can help you wash it off.  Because, you know, you need help.  And for reasons.”

Steve blushed.  It was almost unbelievable, just how Tony could _still_ make him do that.  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Clint moaned, long-suffering.  “Can we get through _one_ battle without you freaking hitting on each other?  Just one!  You two have been together, what, like two years?”

“Three,” Steve corrected with a smile.

“Whatever.  Get a goddamn room.”

“That’s what we were _trying_ to do,” Tony returned cheekily.  “Our room in fact.”  Without even a word, Steve whirled and dropped to a crouch, protecting Tony from the whipping, spiked lobster tail screaming at them.  As the massive limb clanked against vibranium, Tony forced their attacker back with a series of fast, hard repulsor blasts.  Steve was on his feet again, too, punching and kicking right beside him before finally slamming the thing in the chest and sending it tumbling.  Tony finished it off with a missile from his wrist compartment that was perfectly aimed right at the thing’s soft spots.  It exploded.  Christ, what a mess.  “These things need to be taught a lesson for cockblocking us.”

Clint groaned.  “And there we go.  It always gets worse.”

“I agree, friend Stark,” Thor declared.  He sounded a tad breathless but more exhilarated than anything else.  The sky was dark above them and crackling with lightning, and Tony could picture the Asgardian summoning the bolts to his hammer a few blocks down.  “Such inconsiderate behavior warrants extermination with extreme prejudice!”

Tony couldn’t help but laugh, and Steve was _still_ red in the face but grinning like a loon and shaking his head.  Tony stared at him and wondered sometimes how it was possible to be _this_ in love with someone even after three years (or however long it had been).

They’d certainly had their share of tough times, though.  At first they hadn’t hit it off at all, and trying to work together as teammates in the wake of the Avengers forming had been a serious headache.  Tony had to admit that he was a handful, with all his myriad issues and insecurities and obsessions, and he’d seen Steve as irritating at best or an enemy at worst.  Steve, with his no-nonsense morality and his straight-laced opinions and his quiet disposition, was just about as far from someone Tony could tolerate (and trust) as possible.  But Steve had been calm and patient and not intrusive but just the right amount of tough.  He’d made them work, first as colleagues and then as friends, coaxing Tony into an environment where he wasn’t alone, wasn’t left to suffer with his demons without help, and wasn’t allowed to sink down into his troubles.  So when Tony had realized he’d wanted more from their relationship, it had come surprisingly easy.  It had been a funny thing, a sweet thing, realizing he’d fallen in love without all the difficulty he normally associated with that.  Steve had just _been_ there, been there every time he’d needed him after New York, so admitting how he felt to the other man had seemed so strangely natural that Tony had never doubted doing for a second, and that was saying something.

At any rate, here they were, married and leading the Avengers together, so _connected_ and _close_ with each other that sometimes Tony swore they were sharing the same thoughts.  Thinking with one brain almost.  They’d gotten so good at that on the battlefield that Tony couldn’t remember a time where they’d been at odds or where Steve hadn’t been in his life.  Captain America and Iron Man together.  It felt so damn good, like despite all the difficulties and traumas they’d both suffered, despite the Ten Rings and the war seventy years ago, despite the fact that Steve was from past and Tony thrived in the future…  It was stupid and trite but it seemed like this was meant to be.  Tony had never been so at peace with himself, so…  _happy_.

They were even talking about a family.  About adopting or exploring surrogacy.  Tony was surprisingly unashamed to admit he’d been the one to bring it up.

“Sir, the building in front of you has been seriously damaged, and I am still detecting life signs on the lower floors.  Scanners indicate it is stable at the moment.”  A schematic of the apartment building appeared on the HUD with the red outlines of a few people brightly flashing.  Its middle floors were the most damaged, and some key support structures were floundering.  It was dangerous, but JARVIS was right; collapse wasn’t imminent.

So Tony turned to Steve.  “Cap, there are people inside there.  Third floor.”

Steve gave a curt nod, all business again.  “On it.  Get this secured?”

“Definitely.”

With that, Steve was sprinting across the street.  Tony watched him disappear inside the smoking building, gaze lingering just a moment, before another lobster monster decided to attack.  The HUD started to flash with impact warnings again as the thing blasted Tony with its guns.  Tony gritted his teeth, growled, and took to the sky, unleashing his own much larger and cooler arsenal.  Another one of them jumped at him from the side of a building, and JARVIS’ warning was lost under its awful shriek and the pain of him hitting the pavement again.  “Clingy bastard,” Tony growled, kicking and batting at the alien clawing at him.  “Get off!”

An arrow suddenly punched through the lobster’s back, and it reared in pain.  That gave Tony the opportunity to fry the damn thing.  He fired the thrusters in his boots and zoomed upward.  “Thanks, feathers.”

“Anytime, Stark.  Looks like the last wave is at its end.”

Tony turned and saw Thor and the Hulk fairly well pulverizing the remaining aliens.  _Extreme prejudice._   He grinned.  “Gravy.  I’m ready to call this one a success.”

“You’re always ready for that, Tony,” Natasha chided.  He caught sight of her a couple blocks away from the combat zone, and she was escorting civilians to safety.  All the lobster things around them lay in smoldering ruin.  A few were retreating.  Once they cleaned those stragglers up and cleared this building, the fight would be over, and they could go home.

_Thank God._

“Getting the rest of these losers,” he announced, “and then–”

The ground rumbled.  People screamed in the distance, and the buildings shook.  The very air seemed to vibrate.  Tony’s heart leapt in horror, and he spun in the smoky air, looking around frantically for the cause.  It was hard to see anything in the chaos.  “What the hell’s happening?”

JARVIS shouted, “Sir!  They’re–”

“The goddamn ship’s taking off!” Clint yelled.  His voice was desperate, and Tony spotted him running, getting away from the huge alien spacecraft where it was rising from the park.  “Anyone copy?  The ship’s taking off!”

 _Shit._   “JARVIS–”

There was no time to do anything.  The brown hull of the ship levitated up through the smoke, ugly and awful like a giant roach or something, and Tony fired the thrusters in his boots up to go higher.  “Jesus,” he whispered.  “JARVIS, can I–”

“The hull is too thick for you to penetrate with your weapons,” JARVIS tensely declared.  “Sir, Hawkeye!”

Tony spotted him.  Clint was running like mad, jumping from roof to roof as the buildings around the area shook and tremored.  Wasting not a second, Tony jetted across the way to grab Clint when the roof beneath him pretty much disintegrated.  He snatched Clint from the air, nearly yanking the archer’s arm from its socket before Tony hauled him up and blasted away.  Clint howled and clung to Iron Man as Tony carried him to safety on the ground.  “Thanks for the save,” he groaned, doubling over as Tony let him go.

There wasn’t time to do more than nod.  The ship was rising higher and rotating as it did, turning as if these bastards had realized their invasion was doomed and they needed to retreat like yesterday.  Its massive rear end was knocking into the buildings around the street.  “Thor, we need to bring this thing down!” Tony cried, watching helplessly as it unceremoniously laid the city street and surrounding area to waste.  Thankfully the civilians were already clear, save for those few in that one damaged building.  Unfortunately, this thing was swinging dangerously close to the building with Steve in it.  The HUD was tracking Steve’s biosigns and comm signal.  He was nearly to the few trapped people.  He needed to hurry.  “Thor!  Banner!  Get this thing back down!”

As dramatic as ever, Thor’s arrival was heralded by a battle cry and crackle and flash of lightning and the thunder of his feet slamming into the top of the ship.  The whole damn thing twisted, spun, and sped up in an attempt to get away.  Sped up and rammed its bulk right into the side of the building where Steve was.

Tony felt like he was trapped in some odd stupor, unable to move or breathe or think.  The whole thing happened in horrific slow motion.  He spent a seeming eternity watching it all transpire, watching the ship crash into the side of the building and rip away a massive chunk, watching Iron Man’s HUD fill with catastrophic warnings.  The already floundering internal supports were now completely demolished, the middle of the building reduced to rubble, and everything on top was crashing down.

Crashing down onto Steve and civilians below.

“Steve!” he screamed.  Panic tore at his heart.  He raced to the side of the building, flying under the alien spacecraft Thor was busily dismantling and barely squeezing between it and the street.  “Steve!  Come in!  Do you hear me?  Steve!”  He honed in on those blinking life signs on the building schematic.  Third floor.  Second apartment from the right.  “Steve!”

_What if he’s already dead?_

_“Steve!”_

“Tony!”  Tony’s relief at the sound of Steve’s voice was so strong it nearly dropped him from the sky.  A breath later he saw Steve at the window.  Steve kicked the glass out with a crash.  “Tony, get them!”

This wasn’t what he wanted to do.  He wanted _Steve_ safe.  But he didn’t argue, didn’t hesitate, as he hovered by the window and accepted the survivors Steve was handing out.  The guy, an older gentleman, Tony instructed to hang on via his neck.  There were two girls too, one maybe fourteen and the other younger.  “Get them out of here!” Steve cried over the din.  The building shuddered, and he nearly slipped as he handed the smaller child out.

Terror left Tony gasping in the suit.  “Get out of there!” he yelled.  He held the screaming, crying folks tighter, a girl in either arm, and rushed away, heading to Clint.  “Hurry!”

Before Steve could jump, the building tipped and tremored fiercely, and he lost his footing, tumbling back.  He took a second to steady himself.

That second proved incredibly costly.

The alien ship twisted, cracking as Thor pounded it again, and its wing bashed the building.  The whole thing tipped, its front caving and collapsing backward, inward, and then everything practically _imploded_ as the central supports gave.

_“No!”_

A wall of dust and smoke blasted Tony.  He shielded the innocents and Clint as well almost automatically because his brain had locked up and his heart was still in his chest.   The roar of the building collapsing was deafening, and when the blast of it faded, Tony could hardly stand to look.

_Steve._

“Take them,” Tony gasped to Clint.  Clint was frozen, horrified.  _“Take them!”_

“Jesus, Tony…”

“Thor, Steve’s buried!  He’s buried!  I need – I – I–”  Tony didn’t know what he needed.  His brain quit and his voice died and he was already flying toward the shell of a building and blasting his way inside.  The outer walls were mostly still standing, but inside there was a monstrous pile of rubble.  _Steve’s in that.  Under that._ Iron Man’s sensors were frantically scanning the debris.  “JARVIS, JARVIS, where is he, find him, find him, _find him_ –”

JARVIS did.  Steve’s biosigns weren’t easy to track with all of the concrete and wreckage, but his comm signal was still active and functioning.  Whether he could hear or answer, though…  “Steve!  Steve, it’s Tony!”  Iron Man hovered above the building just a moment, looking and scanning anew, before rushing inside, before pulling at the huge slabs of concrete and fallen beams and crushed debris.  The HUD was showing him where to focus, and he did, moving as fast as he could.  “Steve!  Can you hear me?  Steve, please!”

“Sir, cut that,” JARVIS ordered, and Tony activated the lasers in his gauntlet to slice through the thick chunk of concrete blocking his way.  Gritting his teeth, Tony grabbed half the massive piece and threw it to get down lower.  Iron Man’s lights shone in the shadows.  There were small spaces in the wreckage, small spaces that would likely close up just like that because nothing was stable.  The remains of the building groaned and grumbled and threatened to give in at any second.  “The wreckage is precarious.  I recommend you–”

“I’m not leaving him in here!”

“Find him quickly,” JARVIS finished.  “Go.  The comm signal is located approximately five meters below you and to the left!”

He dug.  The rest of the team was shouting.  “Stark!  Where is he?”

“You have him, Tony?  Is he okay?  _Is he okay?”_

“Cap, answer us!”

If Steve did, Tony couldn’t hear it.  Tony couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the building falling down and JARVIS nattering and the team yelling their panic.  “Guys, quiet!  _Quiet!_ ”  They obeyed, but now he couldn’t hear over the pounding of his own heart and the rush of air in and out of his mouth.  He forced himself to take a slow breath to calm down.  “Steve,” he called again after a precious second or two was wasted trying to listen and think and get a goddamn hold of himself.  _Where?  Where?_ “Steve, God, please answer me…”

Silence.  The rubble moaned and whimpered and fell above Tony.  Debris clattered off the back of his armor, and the HUD of course registered the impacts.  He ignored them, ignored the warnings JARVIS was flashing all over about how dangerous this was.  He wasn’t leaving Steve here.  _He wasn’t._   “Steve, baby…”  His voice broke.  “Please say something!”

“Tony?”

It was a quiet call from the shadows below.  Tony didn’t spare another breath, wildly pushing through the wreckage.  It wasn’t safe or smart to be randomly disrupting things and he knew it, but he couldn’t do anything to hold himself back, to wait to dig his husband out because _he_ _wasn’t losing Steve like this–_

“Steve! I’m here!  Say something else!  Steve!”

“Tony…”

Tony surged down.  Above him there was a horrendous crack, and everything shook like an earthquake.  He felt things crushing down behind him, but he didn’t stop, not now, not when he saw a silver star catch the light from the suit’s arc reactor, not when he saw blue eyes and a blue suit and– _“Steve!”_

Tony moved without thinking, dropping down right on top of Steve’s body where it was partially buried.  It wasn’t a moment too soon.  Steve had his hands up protect his face from the debris descending, but Tony was right there, covering him completely so that the wreckage struck the armor instead.  Tony gritted his teeth against the pain; even with Iron Man taking the brunt of it, the force of the concrete banging into his back was serious.  He didn’t buckle though, not even as the wreckage piled around them.

And when it was over, he opened eyes he’d squeezed shut and looked down on his husband.  “Steve?”  Iron Man’s sensors swept over the body beneath him.  A few broken ribs.  A concussion.  A broken right ankle.  But his vitals were in good shape.  “Steve?”

“Tony,” Steve gasped.  He grimaced, squirming in the mess.  There was a bloody welt on his face and red dribbling from a split lip.  He grabbed Tony’s face through the faceplate, cupping and pulling it close in relief.  “Tony–”

Even though he could _see_ Steve was okay, he had to hear it, had to know it.  “Are you hurt?  Are you?”

“It’s not bad,” Steve ground out around gritted teeth, “but my damn leg is stuck.  I can’t–”

Tony turned, and the HUD immediately filled with information about the state of the wreckage, the mess pinning Steve’s leg, the disaster bearing down on them.  They had to get out of there.  He had to get Steve out.  He had to–

There was a thunderous boom, one that shook everything around them.  He thought he heard Steve scream over the roar, but he could only hold him as close as possible as the rest of the building came down on top of them.

* * *

“Tony?  Tony, can you hear me?”

 _Steve._   He felt Steve’s warm, familiar hands caress his jaw, felt him breathe into his neck.  Felt his lips press into his skin.  Felt his strong body close.  Felt his heartbeat, a steady, lulling sound that echoed through his head like distant thunder.  “Tony…  I’m here.  I’m right here.  I love you, Tony.”

_I love you, too._

Tony was pretty sure he smiled.   Why not smile?  This was pretty nice.  Nice and comfortable and safe.  Warm and white and clean.  Steve was here, and the two of them were together, so there was nothing to worry about.  Nothing that hurt.  Nothing to fear.  There was nothing more than this, than Steve’s voice and Steve’s hands and Steve’s heartbeat and Steve right at his side.  So he could stay right here wherever here was, because waking up was too much work.

But Steve was a persistent person.  He was as stubborn as anyone Tony knew, even more stubborn than himself.  So he kept at it.  “Tony, come on.”  _Nope._   “You need to wake up.  Right now.”  _Not happening._   “Come on, Tony!”

“Alright, already.  Alright!”  Tony smiled still, even as he half-heartedly tried to open eyes that were gummy and seemingly fused shut.  “Anything for you, babe.”  _Anything.  I love you._

But there was no answer.  He heard something beeping, something else swishing, and together they were forming a steady, slightly disturbing rhythm that matched Steve’s heartbeat.  There didn’t seem to be much space around him either, like he was trapped somehow.  He couldn’t move.  That was passing strange, so he tried a little harder to wake up.

And he did to a nightmare.

Steve wasn’t cuddled up close to him.  No, _he_ was lying next to _Steve_.  And Steve…  “Oh, God,” Tony moaned.  He sat up, panicked and stricken with horror, and practically fell to the floor because he was trying to get away so mindlessly and gracelessly.  “Oh, God, no.  Steve…”

Steve was deeply unconscious, eyes tightly closed, long lashes pressed to the pale skin of his cheeks.  His face was lax, _empty_ , and he was still.  So still.  A tube was in his mouth, down his throat, taped into place around his lips, and it was forcing air into his chest.  That was the only thing moving.  Steve’s chest slowly, minutely, going up and down as a machine breathed for him because he wasn’t doing it for himself.  And the beeping was another machine monitoring Steve’s sluggish heartbeat.  Slow and sluggish, labored and depressed, because Steve was hurt.  _Steve’s hurt._

Tony stared for what felt like forever because time had slowed to a crawl that was punctuated by only that beeping and swishing and the strained pounding of his own heart.  He couldn’t understand.  What had happened?  Try as he might (and he tried fiercely), he couldn’t make his memory work.  There were splinters of things, shards of images.  A battle in the city.  The Avengers.  Monsters from outer space.  A building collapsing?  Choking dust and crushing rubble and darkness.

_Steve screaming._

“No, no, no,” Tony moaned.  His knees gave out and he went down, hitting the floor hard.  The impact jarred his bones, and breathing was all he could do to fight against the pressing hysteria.  The world winked in and out, feeling wrong and strange, and everything spun.  This couldn’t be real.  It couldn’t be.  He was back under that building, trapped with Steve as the hulking mass of it came down and buried them both.  He’d been hit in the head or something.  That had to be it.  Or, better yet, he was back in the penthouse, trapped up in a night terror of some sort.  He was sleeping, having a really vivid, really awful dream.  Worst fears come to life.  That was what this was.  His overactive, overly paranoid imagination conjuring up the most terrible thing it could because even after a happy year of marriage and settling down and putting his dark and damaged past behind him his subconscious couldn’t get with the goddamn program.  He and Steve were safe in bed, tangled up together with Steve wrapped around him like the human octopus he was with all those muscles and long limbs and all that heat and this was just a dream and he’d wake up and Steve would be there to tell him that he was having some sort of twisted nightmare and kiss away his tears and make sure he knew everything was alright and _this couldn’t be real_ –

Tony choked on the knot constricting his throat, forcing open eyes he’d squeezed shut against tears because he had to abide by all that the irrational hope thrumming through his veins and look again.

But nothing had changed.  _Nothing._ Why would it?  Steve was hurt.  Steve was in this bed, lifeless.  This wasn’t a dream.  _This was real._

Tony collapsed, grabbing the side of the hospital bed and opening his mouth in a soundless scream.  He felt like his body was being ripped apart and turned inside out.  The pain was unimaginable.  He sucked in a breath, tears bleeding from his eyes, and managed to function enough to look up again and reach for Steve’s hand.  It was there at his side, a pulse oximeter on his middle finger, a hospital ID band around his wrist.  His wedding ring, a simple silver band, right where it should be.  Tony blinked away burning tears, staring at that for what felt like forever before finding the strength to take Steve’s hand.  It was limp and felt cold to Tony, devoid of its normal strength and purpose.  Nothing about that felt right, and he almost jerked his hand away from the shock of it.  But he didn’t.

No, he drew another breath, making his lungs stop seizing and start functioning.  He pushed himself up more.  Blinked away the haze of tears and the dizzy hell the room had become.  Forced himself to calm down.  And he held Steve’s hand tighter, weaving their fingers together.  “Steve?”

Steve didn’t answer.  His eyes were still closed, hiding those vibrant baby blues that had taken Tony’s heart pretty much from the beginning, long, _long_ before he’d been brave enough to admit it to himself, let alone to Steve.  And his voice was silent, that voice that could bark orders with the best of them and intimidate bad guys (or misbehaving Avengers) with only a stern word and bring Tony to his knees with desire and offer care and compassion so selflessly.  Tony stared and listened very hard, waiting and waiting for something, some sign that Steve was alright.  Desperation compounded on pain and that back-fed on fear and all of that circled into anguish and anger, and he could barely hold himself together with the onslaught of it.  “Steve…  Open your eyes, honey.  Come on.”

Steve didn’t.  Steve didn’t answer and didn’t move and didn’t do _anything_.  Tony swallowed down his nausea and squeezed the lifeless fingers between his hands.  “Steve…”

“Hey.  You’re awake.”

Painfully startled, Tony ripped around.  There in the door of the room, this bland hospital room with gray walls and a white tiled floor and a big window letting in daylight, stood Bruce.  He was dressed in jeans and a red shirt, and he looked like haggard, like he hadn’t slept in a while.  He frowned.  “Did you get any rest?”

Rest?  Tony couldn’t make heads or tails of that as Bruce stepped into the room.  Something didn’t feel quite right about it.  But, then, what did feel right?  The fact that he honestly had no recollection of how they’d gotten here?  The fact that everything hurt and his brain wasn’t cooperating with him?  The fact that his husband was apparently on goddamn life support?  His mouth fell open, but his mind was for once completely empty of anything remotely cognizant.

Bruce came over and checked the monitors next to the bed.  His shoulders were slumped with defeat and his eyes were dark.  He glanced at Steve, and the misery in his gaze got deeper.  Then he turned his gaze on Tony.  “You okay?”

Tony shook his head.  “I…  What happened?”

Bruce was concerned.  “You still don’t remember?”

Tony winced, trying to think, but his head ached too fiercely and everything was cloudy save for those splashes of sensation.  It was more than a little disconcerting that things were so jumbled and unclear.  And that obviously this had been explained to him before (if the furrow of worry in Bruce’s forehead was any indication) and he couldn’t remember _that_ , either.  “The fight…  And the building came down.  I…  I went in…”  _To save Steve.  I went in to save him._  

Bruce nodded sadly, adjusting a couple things on Steve’s monitors.  “You guys were crushed.  It took the rescue crews and Thor and me…  Thor and the Other Guy almost two hours to dig you out.”  Tony looked away, his gaze invariably returning to Steve’s face.  He seemed… peaceful.  Not at all like the last time Tony had seen him, trapped down in that pit with the wreckage looming and breaking and falling.  _Peaceful?_ came the bitter, angry thought.  _Bullshit._   His anger was slowly winning out over anything else.  “He took the brunt of it.”  _Steve did.  I was right there and I did nothing to protect him.  Nothing._   Tony felt sick, felt the burn of bile in the back of his throat, and the hazy room spun anew.  Bruce sighed.  “You really don’t remember me telling you all this a couple days ago?”

“What’s wrong with him?”

That furrow of worry in Bruce’s forehead got deeper.  “You don’t remember me telling you that, either?”

Tony didn’t care.  The hysteria was building and building.  “What’s wrong with him, Bruce?”

“You really need a CT scan.  I don’t care if you think you’re okay.  You took a bad hit, and you’ve got a nasty concussion.  The fact that your memory’s still not right this many hours after–”

Tony completely lost it.  “Goddamn it, Bruce, _tell me what’s wrong with him!”_

Bruce’s expression loosened in sympathy rather than shock, and he looked sadly between Tony and Steve.  Then he submitted.  “He suffered a severe head injury.  There’s a great deal of bleeding, enough to put dangerous amounts of pressure on his brain.  He’s got other problems, too.  A broken leg and some pretty badly fractured ribs and some internal damage.  But it’s the hematoma that’s threatening his life.  It’s impacting the brain stem.”  Bruce shook his head, and his look was nothing short of grim.  “It’s not good.  At the moment there’s not much…  There’s very little brain activity that we can detect.  He’s…  He’s in a coma.”

 _Coma._   It was pretty damn obvious, Tony realized as he stared at Steve now, but actually _hearing_ it…  It was like a death knell.  His heart shuddered and there was not a breath to be had.  His brain kept right on thinking, though.  Denying.  He’d always been mighty proficient at that.  “How long’s he going to be like this?” 

Bruce hesitated again, dropping his gaze as though it was physically difficult to look at either of them.  That should have been evidence enough that this was even more serious than he’d feared.  Bruce was a pessimistic jerk sometimes, but he was also smart beyond measure and he didn’t delude people.  Years of working with him had taught Tony that.  He said things like they were.  So if he wasn’t talking, then it was because it was bad and _he couldn’t lie._

That only stoked Tony’s terror and impatience.  “How long?” he demanded again, his voice cracking and his vision swimming and his hands tighter and tighter around Steve’s.

Bruce shook his head.  “With the absence of higher order brain function, the doctors doubt…”  He paled and stumbled over his words.  “The doctors don’t think he’ll wake up.”

_He’s not going to wake up._

Had he heard this before and forgotten it?  Maybe he had.  Maybe Bruce had told him before and the concussion he had hadn’t permitted the facts to sink in and the new memories to form.  Or maybe he’d repressed it because it was too terrible to even consider.  Or maybe this just wasn’t _real._   That had to be it.  He went right back to that desperate hope.  _This is a bad dream.  I’m at home in bed, and Steve’s right there, and I’m going to work up and see him and it’ll be over.  I have to wake myself up._

He was awake, though.  And he could see Steve.  Steve was in a coma, hooked up to a ventilator and countless other machines with IVs dripping medications into his veins.  Steve was dying because Tony had sent him into that damn building and hadn’t been able to save him.

Bruce was talking now, droning on about things, and Tony knew he should be listening.  He was mentioning Steve’s CT scan, the areas where the bleeding was the worst and how the swelling was making it difficult to assess the true extent of the damage.  He was going on about what the doctors thought, how deep the coma was, how that compounded with the other physical injuries painted a very poor prognosis.  About the serum maybe.  Tony wasn’t listening, simply unable to parse the words, and his brain was sort of filling in the blanks for him.  The serum was not able to overcome the damage.  He supposed it made sense, given how broad and bad the damage was.  Then Bruce said something about there not being much chance or hope, about how enough days had passed since the attack that they were all hoping to see some improvement by now.  There was no improvement to be had, as if that wasn’t starkly obvious.  Steve was still, and every time Tony found it within himself to open his eyes and look at him, the gray room darkened and the pain throbbed through his head and he felt sick and dizzy.

“We’re doing everything we can,” Bruce promised.  His friend’s soft voice made Tony lift his head from Steve’s hand where he’d apparently buried it while his world had teetered and twisted.  Bruce swallowed hard enough that his Adam’s apple bobbed, and there seemed to be tears in his eyes as he stared at Steve’s body.  “We are.  And we will _keep_ doing that.  _Everything_ we can.  I know it’s weird for me to say this, but…  Scientific certainty isn’t always the end of it.”  Tony squeezed his eyes shut.  “No one’s giving up.  We’ll figure something out.  And he’s a fighter.  God, we all know that.  You know that.  He’s not going to quit.”

The words came unbidden.  “No.  No, he doesn’t quit.”  _Steve fights.  He never gives up on anyone.  He won’t give up on himself._   “You’re right.  I know he’s going to keep fighting.”  His voice broke.  He shuddered through a breath, but he didn’t cry.  His eyes burned and stung until he could hardly stand it and Steve’s body was a blur of pale skin and white blankets and lusterless blond hair, _but he didn’t cry._   “And if he’s fighting, I’m fighting right with him.  I’m not leaving him.”

“You need rest in a real bed.  You need–”

Tony shook his head stubbornly.  “Not leaving him.”

Bruce roughly wiped at his cheeks.  “You shouldn’t–”

Tony stood, firm and unyielding, and sat in the chair that wasn’t far from the bed.  His scattered brain immediately supplied random images again, long hours he’d spent there… yesterday?  The day before, too?  He couldn’t remember exactly.  It didn’t matter.  He was sitting here however long he needed to sit here.  He wasn’t going to let Steve spend a second like this alone.  Not one second.  “This is where I’m staying,” he said, taking up Steve’s hand again.  “Right here.  Right with him.”  _Where I belong._

Bruce lingered a moment more, watching as Tony resolutely stared at Steve.  Tony refused to look away.  That was perhaps stupid or childish or petulant or he didn’t know what, but he didn’t care.  He wasn’t going to acknowledge anything other than Steve and the fact the Steve was going to get better.  _Steve’s going to get better._

Bruce turned.  His footsteps echoed in the silence, louder than the beeping and the swishing, as he walked away.  But he paused at the door.  “Listen,” he said.  Tony closed his eyes and released a long breath.  It took a great deal of effort to turn around.  Bruce didn’t wait for him to, going on with whatever he wanted to say.  “You’re not alone in this.  We’re all here.  We’ll stand by you, no matter what happens.  You don’t have to take it on yourself.”

“How can I not?” Tony asked.  _I sent him in there.  And I didn’t get him out._   All the armor and the technology and the strength in the world didn’t matter given that monumental failing.

It didn’t seem Bruce was ready to accept that, though.  “Just… don’t.  Alright?  You’re with him, and we’re with you.”  Smiling felt to be impossible, but Tony forced himself to.  And he forced himself to nod, too.  Bruce seemed satisfied with that.  “I’ll go tell the others you’re awake.  They’ll want to come in.  They didn’t want to disturb you since you were finally sleeping.  That okay?”

Of course it was.  Steve was their captain, their friend.  No, much more than that.  Over the last few years, the bonds between them all had grown deep and meaningful and difficult to break.  It occurred to him then that losing Steve would be devastating for the team, too, and not just him.  The Avengers.  The country, to which he was a hero and a symbol of freedom and valor.  To the world.  _God._ Tony felt stupid and selfish.

But that wasn’t going to happen.  Steve would be okay.  It didn’t matter how crushed his body was or how damaged his brain was.  The serum would save him, because that was what the serum did.  Tony had seen it before, seen Steve overcome horrible things.  For crying out loud, the serum had kept him alive buried in tons of arctic ice for _seventy_ years.  This was going to be no different, no less incredible, because fate wouldn’t be so cruel to take away the one thing in Tony’s life that he loved completely and sweetly and selflessly.  That wouldn’t _ever happen._

Bruce nodded again.  “Okay.  Be back in a bit.  Lay down if you don’t feel well.  _Please._   You don’t do anyone any good if you pass out.  And if the confusion doesn’t get better, you’re having a CT scan.  No complaints.”

Tony spared a moment to wave Bruce away.  “Sure.”

The other man lingered a bit longer and then left, closing the door softly behind him.

And Tony fell apart.  He hadn’t quite realized just how threadbare his control was until right now, until he was alone with Steve and that damnable swishing and beeping.  Now the tears flooded his eyes and rolled pathetically down his cheeks as he buried his face in Steve’s hand and sobbed.  His head hurt.  His chest hurt.  God, it hurt.  He clutched at his heart, shuddering through every strained beat.  He could almost imagine Steve’s fingers brushing through his hair, sweeping lightly down his face.  He could almost feel it.

_Almost._

“No,” Tony declared.  He sniffled, wiping viciously at his sodden cheeks, smearing the tears.  Then he wiped Steve’s hand, too.  “Not doing this.  Not gonna break down.  I know you wouldn’t.  If our roles were reversed and things were switched, you wouldn’t break down.  You’d sit here and tell me it’ll be okay.”  He sniffled again, nodding to his thoughts.  “And not just that, right?  You’d _believe_ it.  So I’m going to believe it, too, because I love you and I know you’re going to fight through this.  You fight through it, Steve.  You fight through everything.  Bruce is right about that.  I know that because Bruce is right about a lot of things.  Don’t ever tell him I said that, though.  I know you hate it when he and I argue about stuff, but he thinks he knows everything.  And I don’t like being wrong, especially not with Bruce, so argue we must.  Being Science Bros. only goes so far.  Plus I don’t think that Betty strokes Bruce’s… _ego_ …”  He smiled despite himself.  “As much as you stroke mine.”

Steve didn’t laugh at the joke.  Steve didn’t blush the way he always did, like they hadn’t been together for years and didn’t know each other’s bodies inside and out.  Steve couldn’t, because Steve was in a coma.  _Coma._   Tony bit his lower lip to pull himself back together, drove his teeth down into it until he tasted blood.  The pain eased again, and he sucked in a cleansing breath.  “I know you.  You hear me, Steve?  _I know you._   I know everything about you.  A million and one things.  Small things and big things.  I know you like your coffee black and you sing in the shower and you draw better than anyone I’ve ever seen and you still act dumb about the future just to tease me.  I know like being the big spoon and you like to pretend you’re not following me when I ramble about my inventions just to give me a reason to explain it all again.  I know how good you look in jeans.  And out of them.”  He grinned wider.  “I know…  I know you like chocolate and you’d eat it on everything if you could – Christ, when this is over, we’ll have chocolate ice cream and chocolate chips with fudge and chocolate syrup.  As much as you want, even though I don’t – it’s not my favorite.”

His voice broke at that, and he had to gather himself.  It took a moment, and it was so hard.  But he breathed slower, got the tremble in his muscles under control.  “I know you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.  The bravest.  The best.  You’re the first one into battle and the last one off the field and even then only when you know everyone is safe.  I know you’d do anything to spare someone else from being hurt.  And for me?  I know what’d you do for me.”  Tony shivered.  “I know how much you love me.  I don’t know what I did to deserve that, but I know I don’t deserve it.  I don’t deserve you.  I never have.  But… please, Steve.  Please.  Please come back to me now.  Wake up, sweetheart.  Please.  Open your eyes.  Please.  _Please.”_

There was no answer.  Just the swishing and beeping.  Tony sighed.  He lifted Steve’s hand to his lips, kissed his knuckles, swept his thumbs over them, over the wedding band.  He nodded, more to himself than to Steve.  _Patience.  Hope._ “Alright, baby.  Sleep.  You wake up when you’re ready, when you’re better.  I’ll be here when you do.”

* * *

When they got married, they wrote their own vows.  It was cheesy and silly, but Tony did stuff that was cheesy and silly when it came to Steve.  Their wedding had been a small affair, only close friends (which had become family, since neither of them had families of his own) in attendance, which basically meant the Avengers, Pepper, and Rhodey.  Frankly, Tony had been okay with small.  His life had always been too big for him: a company that was too vast to manage, a legacy that was too daunting to adopt, a fortune that was too massive to control and a reputation that was too huge and important to tolerate sometimes.  Also they had collectively agreed at the time that the country wasn’t ready for the revelation that Captain America was romantically involved with Iron Man.  The world still didn’t know, like Steve was the one part of Tony’s life that was secret and pure.  So small had been nice.  Small had been perfect.

And small had allowed him to embrace cheesy and silly things like offering up his own vow.  He could still remember the words.  It never took much to bring them right to the forefront of his mind.  God, he’d been nervous.  That had been the first time in forever that he’d been truly afraid of screwing something up.  But he hadn’t.  No, he’d stood there, Steve’s hands in his own, Steve’s smile sweet and Steve’s eyes brilliantly blue and Steve’s heart open and offering.  Tony had told him that they were meant to be together.  That he’d lived a life of science and mathematics and logic, but nothing had ever been fully right in his world.  Quite often now he wondered if that was why he’d been so screwed up before, why he’d ignored his sins and partied without care or consideration and drank and slept around.  He’d never felt completely at ease in his skin.  Something had always been off-kilter, like trying to make sense of a picture that was upside down.  Nothing had seemed complete, despite all the money and smarts and technology he had at his disposal.  Nothing had ever been balanced.  _“Not until I realized I love you.  Then I…  I felt it inside.  Like the missing variable to fix the equation.  Like the piece of the puzzle I couldn’t find.  I knew it then, that I belonged right with you.  Right at your side.  And you belonged at mine, because we go together.  We’re two halves of the same heart, the same soul.”_   That was where he’d lost his courage, grinned like a fool and laughed in embarrassment and said, _“That’s so incredibly lame.  I–”_

“It wasn’t,” Steve said.  Tony could feel Steve’s fingers stroking through his hair, feel his breath close again.  “It wasn’t lame.  It wasn’t stupid.  You always say that, Tony.  I loved it.  Loved every word.”

In his mind, Tony smiled and snuggled closer, because in his mind, Steve was really right there.  “Sap.”

“You don’t know how much I feel the same,” Steve said.  His voice was quiet, soft but tremoring and ragged with emotion.  It was so powerful a thing Tony could almost convince himself it was real.  But it wasn’t.  This was a dream.  He was imagining Steve talking to him.  He’d been doing that a lot, and this time was no different.  _Imagining_ , because that was infinitely better than the goddamn awfulness of reality.  “You don’t know how much I wanted to tell you that.  When you said it…  I could see how much you meant it, and…  I’m not good with words, Tony.  Not like you.  So I couldn’t say back then that–”

There was a knock at the door, and Tony jolted.  His eyes popped open, and Steve’s voice went silent because Steve was still in the hospital bed with a tube down his throat.  Still in the coma.  Tony sighed through a sob, wiping at his eyes.  Apparently crying while sleeping was a thing.  “Who knew,” he grumbled.  He lifted Steve’s hand where it was clasped between his clammy palms and kissed Steve’s knuckles before setting it down.  “Stay here.  You’re not getting up, right?”  The monitors beeped and the respirator swished.  “Didn’t think so.”

Whoever was at the door ran out of patience and cracked it open.  Tony turned and met Clint’s gaze.  “Hey, man,” the archer greeted softly.  “Thought I’d come stay with him for a while so you can go.”

Tony supposed he should have been touched by the offer, but he wasn’t.  He’d developed this sort of numbness, this shield of apathy, with the world around him.  The only thing that was alive and true was his connection to Steve.  Everything else was sort of hazy and distant, and again nothing felt quite right.  That was fine by him.  He didn’t want things to feel right or good without Steve.  “You can come in, but I’m not leaving.”

Clint stared at him disapprovingly.  “You look like shit, dude.”  Tony scrubbed a hand down his face.  He probably did.  Clint stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him.  “When’s the last time you slept or ate or, I dunno, went home for a minute?”

“I’ve been home,” Tony insisted.  And he had been.  At least, he was pretty sure of that.  He probably slept and ate and took a shower because that made sense.  That would be what someone in his position would go home to do.  And then the thought of staying in their bedroom where everything was exactly as it had been left before the battle, with Steve’s things all over – _his sketchbook on the desk and his books piled on the coffee table and his sneakers by the closet and his jacket draped over the back of one of the chairs and his side of the bed cold and empty and smelling so deeply of his soap and feeling so much of his warmth and his light and life that the idea of sleeping there by himself sent Tony stumbling into the bathroom to puke and cry and ask over and over again why this had happened_ – would be too repulsive and painful to handle.  “And I took a minute to myself.”

Clint wasn’t buying the bullshit he was selling.  “Sure you did.”  He came over and sat in the chair on the other side of Steve’s bed.  Again, Tony had some cloudy recollections of people having been there.  He couldn’t say when or who, though.  Everything was this blur in his head, the blur of being here with Steve and imagining Steve’s voice and knowing the other Avengers had been coming and going, but he was too tired and spent and hurt to put effort into keeping track of any of it.

The silence that came was tense.  Tony took up Steve’s hand again.  He’d hardly let it go since this had started.  And he stared at Steve’s face like he always did, too, the memories of Steve’s voice warm and pleasant in his head.  “Come on,” he said softly, smoothing his palm over Steve’s skin.  “Come on, Steve.  Open your eyes.”

“You think he can hear you?” Clint quietly asked.

Tony swallowed through the knot in his throat.  “I know he can,” he said resolutely, even if the words were raspy.

Clint leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs and hanging his head.  “Well,” he said after a beat, his own voice thick.  “Then tell him he needs to get his ass in gear and wake the hell up.  The last couple weeks have been…  Well, you know better than anyone how they’ve been.”

Couple weeks?  Tony grimaced.  Had it been that long?  He couldn’t trace the path of the minutes, not really, and that was mildly disconcerting because he normally had a very good sense of time.  He knew he’d been here, and those minutes had been one after another after another of this, of holding Steve’s hand and talking and crying and pleading and begging.  A seemingly endless parade of them.  An endless vigil.  But they were an indistinct blur, and if you were to ask him what day it was or how long he’d been sitting there in that godawful uncomfortable chair, he couldn’t tell you.  He knew that because people _had_ asked.  Frankly, he didn’t care.  He probably should have been concerned about the fact his memory was so poor and spotty; maybe it was the concussion causing it.  Some permanent brain damage.  He’d almost welcome the idea, if it would make him not have to feel any of this anymore.

No.  That was wrong.  Steve wouldn’t want that.  Not that or any other sort of self-pitying, selfish bullshit.

“You okay?”

He was good at lying and telling everyone he was.  He wasn’t as proficient at convincing himself, but he was trying.  His capacity to delude himself had diminished over the last couple years since he’d fallen in love because he just hadn’t needed to anymore.  He needed to now.  “Sure.”

Clint nodded, still not convinced, but he didn’t press.  That was the nice thing about Clint.  He never pressed.  He was quiet and serious, but he had a snarky side a mile wide.  And that razor-sharp eye that watched over the team and protected them from on high so often during battle was surprisingly perceptive everywhere else, too.  Tony didn’t know him that well, despite living in the same building as him for a few years now.  He knew enough, of course.  He knew Clint through what he did and what he said and how he acted, not because he knew his past or knew his secrets.  Steve had told him once that what a man did with what he was was far more important than who he was.  He got the feeling that applied a great deal to Clint, who was the most ordinary of the lot of them but who had on countless occasions proven that he didn’t need armor or a serum or superhuman powers to be essential to their team.

The quiet returned without Tony’s noticing.  Clint wasn’t the sort to babble about useless shit just to fill the silence (which was another thing Tony appreciated about him, considering he himself had been running his mouth in a continual conversation with himself just so he wouldn’t have to suffer with the fact Steve couldn’t respond).  Consoled, Tony drifted a little, lulled by that ever-present swishing and beeping.  The damn swishing and beeping.  At first he’d taken comfort in the steady pace of them.  It meant Steve was still breathing and his heart was still beating.  It meant Steve was still alive, so there was still hope he’d wake up.  He’d made himself think of it like that before.  Now…

“Hard to see him like this.”  Clint’s voice was thunderous, and Tony made his burning eyes focus.  The archer was still leaning forward, and his gaze was firmly planted on Steve’s unmoving body.  His eyes were wetly glimmering, but he was blinking it back.  “He’s… He’s always got something to do, you know?”  His gaze flicked to Tony, and he smiled sadly.  “’Course you do.”

Tony nodded.  “Yeah.”

“Always moving.  Always…  You know, you really brought him out of himself.  When we all started this thing, he…  You could see he was holding a lot up inside.  He hid it surprisingly well, all things considered.  And you helped him work through it all.  Gave him purpose with us.  What happened to him…  It’s really damaging.”

“Yeah.”  It was.  Waking up in the future, where everyone Steve had known and loved was dead or dying, had been a tremendous shock.  Not to mention having to adapt to a strange new world loaded with things he didn’t know and didn’t understand.  At the time, Tony had been so belligerent about the mere idea of having to work with Captain America (about whom his father had never shut up and for whom his father had essentially traded his childhood) that he hadn’t cared about what Steve had been going through.  And Steve was a big fan of silently soldiering on through things that hurt him.  He was surprisingly adept at acting and looking like he was fine when he wasn’t.  It was noble and brave and self-sacrificing and so, so stupid.  He didn’t do that much anymore, didn’t draw all his troubles and grief inside like he used to.  Didn’t lay down on the wire so much.  Tony didn’t let him.

“I poke fun, you know?”  Clint sniffled and wiped at his eyes.  “Back during the battle there…  I’m really sorry about it.”

That had hardly been the first time Clint (or the other team members, though Clint was probably the leader of it) had teased them.  It was almost a given every battle.  “It’s alright.”

“He’s strong.  Much stronger than this.  Never seen him fall and not get up, so he’ll get back up.”

“I know.”

“Did the doctors come by today?”  Despite the firm words a mere breath before, Clint’s voice was timid and worried now.  Tony only nodded.  “What’d they say?”

At the time Tony hadn’t been listening too well, at least not beyond the initial sad proclamation that nothing was better.  He should be paying better attention.  He was Steve’s next of kin, his husband.  He had medical (and every other) power of attorney.  He was Steve’s _legal_ advocate.  It was his job to oversee Steve’s care, to make the important decisions, but every time the doctors started talking with that morose frown on their lips and that regret and sympathy bright in their eyes, he shut down like a coward.  “Not much.  He’s, uh…  He’s still completely unresponsive.”  Bruce had said that, hadn’t he?  Yeah.  Tony’s brain filled in the other details.  He was pretty sure he’d been told them all at one time or another.  It wasn’t like anything was changing.  “The swelling’s better.  The bleeding’s stopped, I guess.  But he won’t wake up.”

The doctors (and Bruce – Bruce had been working on the problem nonstop) had no explanation for why Steve wouldn’t regain consciousness.  Well, that wasn’t entirely true.  The _simple_ explanation was obvious.  He had a devastating traumatic brain injury.  But as to why the serum wasn’t taking care of it?  That was a mystery, and Tony couldn’t figure it out.  Maybe the serum was too taxed.  That made sense, given the seriousness of Steve’s injuries.  More scans had revealed trauma in other areas of his brain.  It was widespread, very serious, and the serum just couldn’t contend with this amount of damage.  Tony was pretty sure he’d heard something about that, that that was what the team of doctors thought.  There were a bunch of them, different faces and different voices, but they all said the same thing.  _The coma’s severe.  His score on the GCS is very low.  No response to painful stimuli.  No eye movement.  No movement at all.  No evidence of higher order brain function._ Tony cleared his throat to stop himself from sobbing again.  “They’re doing another CT scan later today, I guess.  They think there might be…”  He swallowed around the words.  “There might be permanent brain damage.”  Better than what he’d heard them say, than what Bruce had said.  _There’s evidence of brain death._

Clint swore softly but vulgarly.  He shook his head.  Then his shoulders quivered while he raked his fingers through his short, spiky hair.  “What’re you gonna do?”

That question pissed Tony off, and his control was already so strained that holding onto his temper was harder than it should have been.  “What am I supposed to do?  Huh?”  This was coming out twisted and strained and every bit as angry and helpless as Tony felt.  Denial was still far easier than acceptance.  Even though Steve had done a lot to help him learn to deal with his problems in a more constructive way, Steve wasn’t there to help him now, so denial it was.  “Bruce is still working on things.  He has some sort of plan with the serum.  He told me about it.  They’re working on it now, _trying_ it now.”

“What plan?”

Honestly, he couldn’t remember.  He’d immediately latched onto to _any_ speck of hope like a moth drawn to the most meager flame and clung to it.  His brain had shorted out on the mere prospect of the serum saving Steve – _“we can try this but it’s risky and I don’t know if it has much chance of working because it’s never been done before.  But it’s his only hope.”_ – that he hadn’t paid attention to the details.  At any rate, the important thing was that Bruce had a plan.  “He’s fixing Steve with the serum.  I don’t know how.  I just know he’s going to do it.”  Clint shook his head, squinting like he couldn’t understand, maybe not the idea of Bruce having a plan or the fact that Tony Stark didn’t know _every fact and point of data about it._ Tony sighed.  “Look, whatever it takes, I’m willing to do it.  I signed where they told me to sign.  I don’t care about the details.  And I don’t care if it’s risky.  I’ll do anything.  Steve’s not going to die.”

That was a load of shit.  Steve was already dead.  Shut off those machines and…  _No._

There were a ton of things Clint could have said to that, namely about how futile it probably was.  He didn’t, though.  Clint wasn’t the sort to judge.  Instead he returned his gaze to Steve.  “It’s my fault,” he muttered, and Tony turned to stare at him again, surprised.  Clint had his elbows braced on his thighs, and he was leaning forward with his head lowered in shame.  It seemed the weight of everything, of their life that had suddenly and inexplicably gone wrong, was crushing him down.  “If I hadn’t gotten in trouble out there, flushed from my position…  Maybe…”  He couldn’t finish.

Tony had been thinking about that, too.  If Clint hadn’t had to escape from the top of those buildings collapsing.  If Tony hadn’t had to save him.  If he’d been able to go in after Steve right away.  If Thor hadn’t clobbered that damn ship just the way he had to cause it to turn just like it did and hit the building just so.  If Steve had moved a little faster and gotten out of there before everything had come down.  If he hadn’t been buried the exact way he had been.  _If if if._   It didn’t matter, and Tony knew it, but damn if it wasn’t impossible for his rational brain to convince his irrational heart.  He was still angry, if he let himself really feel it.  He was so _goddamn_ angry.  This shouldn’t have happened.  It should _never_ have happened.  Accidents on the battlefield were always a looming threat.  It was bad enough facing the level of danger they did from the fight itself.  Things like this…  _It wasn’t fair._

“I’m sorry,” Clint whispered.  “I’m so damn sorry.”

 _Sorry doesn’t mean anything._   Sorry wasn’t going to bring Steve back.  He was pretty sure _everyone_ had apologized at one time or another since this happened.  He had heard “sorry” from so many mouths, read it in so many eyes, felt it in so many hands.  _So sorry._ It wasn’t fair and wasn’t anyone’s fault.  Tony knew he should say something to that effect, something to comfort Clint, to assure him that he wasn’t to blame and that this was just _one of those things._   One of those awful things that happened.  An accident that had no explanation.

To hell with that.

He wanted to scream.  Instead he ground his teeth together and stayed silent.  Clint sighed and wiped at his eyes again.  “Mind if I stay awhile?  I, uh…  I know you don’t want to go.  But if you want to…  I can sit with him.”

Tony sniffled.  All that heat and anger was gone as quickly as it had come.  “No, I’ll stay.”  Belatedly he realized that was dismissive and a bit mean.  “You can stay, too.  If that’s what you want.”

Clint gave a tired, worn grin.  “Think I’ll wait with you.  I won’t even make fun of you for, you know, getting lovey dovey.  Or whatever.”

Tony couldn’t help but offer up a worn grin of his own.  It was quiet again for a bit.  The beeping and the swishing.  The silence where Steve’s voice should have been.  Tony reached over and brushed the hair off Steve’s forehead.  It was an errant lock that stubbornly kept falling back no matter how often Tony smoothed it away.  He did that a few more times, trying to lose himself in the comfort of touch.

“You…  You don’t have to stop talking just ’cause I’m here,” Clint eventually said.  Tony turned to him, and the archer shrugged.  “I won’t say anything.  Besides…”  He lifted his chin to Steve.  “I think you’re right.  I think he can hear you.  And he listens to you.  He always has.  Always will.   So keep talking.”

Tony’s grin grew wider, more genuine and more true.  He turned back to his husband.  “You hear that, Steve?  Clint’s actually telling me to _talk_.  Hell hath frozen over.  And he’s here when he could be… polishing his knives or stringing his bow or…  Or whatever it is he does.”  Clint chuckled, drying his eyes again.  “So wake up.  Enough of this now.  Bruce is gonna…  We’re gonna make this better.  Figure out how to fix it, right?  You always tell me I’m so good at that.  So we will.  Okay?  You just keep fighting.  Keep fighting to return to us.”  Tony leaned closer, fighting the lump in his throat, and kissed Steve’s cheek.  He was careful not to jostle the respirator tubing, even as he cradled Steve’s face and pressed his lips to his forehead, too.  “Please, Steve.  Please keep fighting…”

_Please wake up._

* * *

Steve didn’t wake up.

Tony had never counted himself as a terribly patient man.  He liked things that came quickly, things that were easy.  Things that didn’t require _waiting._   Waiting was shit, and he sucked at it.  Steve gave him crap all the time about how he couldn’t sit still, couldn’t stop fidgeting or talking or doing anything and everything to pass the time when he couldn’t buy his way into making things happen faster.  He couldn’t buy his way through this; that was for sure.  And no amount of whining or cajoling or begging was making Steve come back to him.  Pretty soon, Tony was too tired to fidget anymore, too tired to talk, too tired to rail or scream about it (which he was pretty sure he’d done at one time or another).  Pretty soon, he was sitting in silence.

Numb.

It was weird, how he felt now.  Exhausted and perpetually in pain, _weak,_ but he wasn’t hungry and he didn’t want to sleep and nothing felt like anything.  Depression, he was sure.  That was an idle thought, a fairly meaningless self-diagnosis, that was creeping around his brain.  He couldn’t focus on that, couldn’t care.  As far as he was concerned, he deserved to be depressed.  Deserved to wallow in his anguish as the world grew even dimmer and he became even more disconnected.  It was too much work not to drift.

Weeks had passed since Bruce had started to try to save Steve’s life.  Tony knew that much.  And he knew it wasn’t doing much yet.  _Patience.  Hope._   He was pretty sure people kept suggesting those things with unwavering persistence, offering everything from gentle requests to harsher reminders.  Tempers were running thin, of course, and that was only reasonable.  Despite Bruce’s plan, Steve still wasn’t getting better.  Despite everything, the time that had passed and whatever good the serum could do and whatever treatment Bruce was trying and whatever begging and pleading Tony was doing from Steve’s side…  _he wasn’t getting better._

And if Steve could hear him, Steve was ignoring him.  Steve – well, the fake Steve in his dreams – kept talking to him, though.  That was something.  Something wondrous and comforting yet all together disturbing because it _felt_ so real – _the only thing that felt real in this screwed up world_ – but Tony knew beyond any doubt that it wasn’t.  Fake Steve kept begging Tony not to let go.  Fake Steve kept crying for Tony to stay strong.  Fake Steve didn’t seem to understand that he had it all backwards, though Fake Steve was part of Tony’s subconscious, so Fake Steve comforting him made sense.  And both Fake Steve and Real Steve would always offer comfort to Tony first and foremost, put Tony _first,_ so…  Yeah, Fake Steve would definitely tell him to be strong and to hang on because Steve was absolutely and unerringly _selfless._

So Fake Steve would _definitely_ try to shield Tony from having to accept the fact that Real Steve might as well be dead already.

Tony stared at Steve’s face yet again with bleary eyes and a broken heart.  Nothing ever changed.  He could do this for hours, had done it for days and weeks.  He’d sat there diligently and willed Steve to flinch or shift a little or try to speak.  He’d stare at his eyes that were sealed so tightly shut and _will_ him into opening them.  Tony had memorized every detail of Steve’s face.  This was hardly the first time he’d stared and studied.  Steve was a work of art.  People said that about other people, and it was usually a bunch of specious bullshit, but not when it came to Steve.  Steve was that sort of handsome that was so much more than handsome.  Beautiful, really, with his sun-kissed hair and gorgeous blue eyes and full lips and flawless features.  The slope of his nose and the angle of his eyebrows and the commanding line of his jaw.  Tony knew every detail, every expression from Steve’s Captain America furrow of disapproval to his easy smile to his flow-blown, head-thrown-back laugh to the way his eyes darkened and he chewed his lower lip when he concentrated on drawing to the way he came apart with pleasure when they made love.  Tony had never fathomed, in those tense moments of their first meeting, that there had been so many things he could learn about Steve’s face.  All these little details to discover.

And they were all gone now.  Wiped away, like they’d never existed at all.  And they might never exist again.  _Permanent brain damage._   Even if this plan of Bruce’s worked…

Steve might never come back to him.  Not the way he had been.

Tony squeezed his eyes shut against fresh tears.  It was shocking to him that there could still _be_ tears after all this.  “God, let it work,” he whispered.  “Make the serum work.”  It felt like this was the first time he’d spoken in days, even though he knew that couldn’t possibly be true.  And when he took Steve’s hand anew and clasped it between his own, it seemed like this was the first _movement_ he’d made in forever.  His body was starting to turn into its own kind of prison, it seemed. 

Tony drew a deeper breath and decided to go around the circle of futility once more.  Talking.  Begging.  Whining.  Complaining.  _Praying._ “Please, God…”  Truth be told (and it was hardly a surprise), he wasn’t big on praying.  Never had been.  He couldn’t reconcile God with his life and this world in the slightest.  But he was doing it now, despite all his doubts and misgivings and bitterness.  He’d been doing it since the beginning almost.  _Please, God, don’t take him from me.  Please, God, let him wake up.  Please let him be alright.  Please, God…_ “Let it work.  Please.  I don’t talk to you much.  I know that.  And we don’t have a great relationship.  I know that, too.  But I can’t…  I can’t lose him.  You don’t know how much I need him.  He’s the only good thing I’ve ever had, and I know I don’t deserve that, but please…  _Please_ don’t take him.”

“Oh, I thought–”

Tony turned at the sound of Natasha’s voice, flushing with embarrassment and angrily wiping his face.  She stood at the open door to Steve’s room.  Black Widow was always poised, always cool, always difficult to read and always in perfect control over herself.  Not so lately.  Her usual pristine make-up was less than pristine.  Her hair was gathered into a sloppy pony tail.  She was dressed in lounge clothes, the sort she sometimes wore around the Tower when she thought no one was watching.  She was pale, and her eyes were dark with fatigue.  She obviously hadn’t been sleeping.  It was plain to see how much she was suffering.  Had she looked this bad the last time he’d seen her?  _When_ was the last time he’d seen her?  It had to be recently, but damn if he could remember.

She hesitated a moment, eyes moving between Tony and Steve.  “Bruce said you were going home for a bit,” she declared, “so I thought I’d come sit with him.”

Squinting, Tony tried to think.  Had he talked to Bruce that day?  What day was it even?  He had some vague recollection of Bruce being there and going on about his plan to save Steve and how the chances weren’t good and he shouldn’t get his hopes up (fat chance of that).  He somewhat recalled Bruce telling him to go back to the Tower and get some proper sleep in a real bed yet again because he desperately needed it, and he’d probably given some sort of perfunctory “sure, I will” or some such in response.  That was what he kept telling everyone.  Pepper and Rhodey (he was fairly certain they’d been there at one point, and he was pretty sure he’d promised them he’d rest, too).  The team as they came and went.  Endless empty promises that he’d take care of himself, but they were really no more or less empty than the countless times he’d been told this would be okay.

Tony was drifting again in his bitter, apathetic thoughts so he didn’t notice Natasha come in at first.  Of course, this was Natasha.  He didn’t need to be half out of his mind with exhaustion and grief not to see her move.  She sat in the other chair.  It was in a different position again, and it was nighttime.  No annoyingly bright daylight bleeding into this hell through the window.  This was how he’d taken to telling time now.  The chair moving and the level of sun invading his world.

“How are you?” Natasha finally asked after a long period of silence.

Forcing himself to focus, Tony grunted.  “Dandy.  Can’t you tell?”  Natasha gave him an unhappy look.  He sighed.  “Banner didn’t give you today’s rundown?  Still no signs of brain activity.  Still sitting on an abysmally low score on the Glasgow Scale.  Still no movement, voluntary or otherwise.  A whole lot of nothing.  But hope springs eternal.  We’re still flooding him with the magic potion.  Nothing yet, as you can see.”  Tony waved at hand at his husband’s unmoving body.  He almost lost his nerve, choking on his own voice.  He had to look down and breathe, scrabbling for his composure.  Somehow he found it.  “An hour ago…  Maybe?  Anyway, I thought I saw his eyelids flutter.  I even thought he’d squeezed my hand a little.  So I watched, you know, like a hawk for a long time.  Turns out I was imagining it.  Pretty pathetic, huh.”

“Don’t,” Natasha warned sympathetically.  “Don’t do this.  And I asked how _you_ were.  Not how he is.  I know you think you’re inseparable, but that’s not true.”

“It has to be,” Tony said sternly.  “I’m whatever he is, because until he wakes up…  I’m right here with him.”

Natasha frowned that frown of hers.  Tony was pretty sure that she thought it had some sort of magic power to cause the people she cared about to do better, and she wasn’t exactly wrong about that.  It did have power.  Her consternation could be mighty.  He’d seen her shut down adversaries with only an icy glare.  And he’d seen that frown stop Clint from making an ass of himself and Thor from leaving a mess in the kitchen and Bruce from holing himself up in his lab for days on end and Steve from being too hard on himself when a mission went south.  And he’d witnessed firsthand how that frown had kept him from second-guessing that Steve would ever want him, would ever see him more than just a friend.  _She’d_ been the one to give him, _Tony Stark_ , the confidence boost to take things with Steve further.  In that way, he supposed he had her to thank for what they had.  Love.  Stability.  _Happiness._

He could picture that frown from back then as clearly as he could see it now.  They’d been in the kitchen in the Tower late one evening, Tony grabbing some coffee in preparation for another long night in his workshop trying to distract himself from his feelings, Natasha returning from a mission.  As tired as she’d been, she’d somehow seen right through his excuses.  _“He likes you, Tony.  You two have practically been attached at the hip since you stopped continually trying to destroy each other.”_   She’d smirked at Tony’s blush.  He never blushed, unless it had something to do with Steve. _“You’re practically already dating with all the stuff you guys do together.  You’d have to be blind not to see that.”_

_“I do see that.  Hence my problem.”_

_“Don’t tell me that you don’t like him.  He’s Captain America.  It doesn’t get more perfect than–”_

_“I_ know. _He’s Captain America.  He’s Steve.  And – and he_ is _perfect.  And I’m…  Well, you know what…”_   And there came the frown.  _“What?”_

The frown had deepened into a scowl, and that had been all he’d needed to stop with that nonsense.  That he wasn’t good enough for Steve.  That Steve was _above_ him because Tony used to sleep around and party and sell weapons to murderers and be reckless and stupid and selfish.  That he was damaged, and Steve was too pure for that.  But Natasha’s frown had stopped his bullshit from going any further.  _“I have an idea, genius.  Why don’t you talk to him?  I bet you he’ll be the first to tell you that you’re acting like an idiot for being so damn smart.”_

Well, Steve hadn’t exactly used those terms.  He hadn’t said anything, in fact, when Tony had stuttered and stammered his way through telling him he loved him.  He’d just kissed him.  So Natasha’s frown?  It had saved them.

And she was trying to do the same again.  When the frown by itself wasn’t enough, she sighed.  “I know we’ve all been telling you this, but you’re not listening.”  _Nope._   “You look really rundown.  Really, really rundown.”  _No shit_.  “Let me get you something to eat at least.  If you’re going to sit here and…”  She bit her lip hard and shook her head.  “If you’re going to give everything you have for him, you need to eat.”

Tony shook his head.  “No, no, it’s…  I’m not hungry.”

Her eyes filled with uncharacteristic sympathy.  And irritation.  Now she wasn’t just biting her lip.  She was chewing it.  “I…  I wish there was something you’d let us do.  Let me do.  Seeing you two like this…  The world’s more screwed up and wrong than it’s ever been.”

“Natasha, please…”  He didn’t think he could stand hearing this again.  “I know you guys mean well.  I know that.  But you have to let it go.  I have to stay here.”

Natasha dropped her gaze.  “I…  I just…”  Her eyes welled with tears.  “Christ, you’re so damn stubborn.  Both of you.”

Tony couldn’t help but cock an eyebrow.  “You do realize that his stubbornness is the only thing keeping him alive.”

“No,” she said shortly, “the _machines_ are the only thing keeping him alive!”  Tony’s blood went cold.  Her eyes widened once she realized what she said.  She paled and shook her head.  “Sorry.  I’m so sorry!”

He tried to move on from that, but it took him a second to find his voice.  “It’s alright.  It’s–”

“How did this happen?”

That soft, desperate question gave him pause.  Tony had asked himself that over and over again.  There was no answer.  He’d asked himself, asked Steve, asked God, asked and asked and asked.  He’d turned the moment around over and over again in his head when that ship had taken off and that building had started to fall.  There was nothing anyone could have done, and logically he knew he had to accept that.  Logically Natasha probably knew the same.  She wasn’t looking for an answer either, not really.  Her question was rhetorical and miserable and loaded with guilt.  She sighed through a roughly restrained sob.  The sight of her so broken was disturbing.  “I know there’s no sense in wondering, but…”  She shook her head in wounded and wearied defiance.  “We can’t lose him.”

Suddenly Tony had energy and it warmed his perpetually cold body.  “We won’t.  Bruce’s plan is going to work.  He’ll wake up.”

Natasha squeezed her eyes shut.  “I’m scared,” she whispered.  Tony had never heard her admit _anything_ like that, let alone with that raw, weak tone of her voice.  She was Black Widow.  She didn’t get frightened, didn’t let her emotions control her.  Didn’t falter.  That was what she was doing now.  _Faltering._ “I’m scared this will be it.  I’m trying to hope, but…  It’s been weeks already.  Not weeks.  _A month_.  It’ll be a month tomorrow.”  Tony shuddered.  A month…  “I’m scared it’s too late.”

 _So am I._   “It’s not,” Tony said instead.  “And Steve’s strong.  He’ll pull through.  He’s Captain America.  He doesn’t quit.  That’s what you guys keep saying.”  Somehow he quirked a grin.  “And you wouldn’t lie to a guy, would you?”

Natasha didn’t seem to hear him.  Her eyes were focused on Steve, and Tony could see the tears glittering in them. “You two…  It’s bad enough having him like this.  But I feel like if he dies, you’ll just…  You’ll go with him.”  That made him feel sick.  It wasn’t just what she said but the way she said it.  She said it with certainty.  “Losing him is bad enough, but losing you, too?  I can’t even think about it.  You’ve rubbed off on each other in so many ways.  I don’t even think you see it, how connected you are.  And it’s…”  She looked away from Steve finally.  Her eyes were bright and intense as they stared into Tony’s.  Imploring.  “Don’t lose yourself in this.  _Please._ ”

He wasn’t losing himself.  _He wasn’t_.  And maybe if they could hear Steve like he was hearing Steve…  He heard himself speaking.  “I know Steve’s still there.  He’s still fighting.  I know it.  I can…”  Christ, they’d think he was nuts if he admitted to just how much he’d been hallucinating Steve’s voice.  They already considered him to be recklessly abandoning his own care for Steve’s sake.  The fact that he was having these vivid dreams?  That wouldn’t do him any favors in convincing anyone of his sanity.  Besides, they were hallucinations, right?  Steve couldn’t _actually_ be talking to him somehow…

Yeah, that was goddamn crazy.  Tony heaved a sigh, and gathered himself because he had to seem rational and strong.  “Listen, Tash, it’s gonna be okay.  I know it will be.  I know Steve is with us.  He’s not gone.  He’s not dead.  He’s going to be okay.  And what Bruce is doing, what _I’m_ doing here…  It’s going to work.”  He picked up Steve’s hand.  “We just have to lead him back, right?  That’s why I have to stay.”

It took a moment, but Natasha nodded.  She seemed genuinely relieved, breathing easier and blinking her eyes clear.  Then she stood from the chair with only a fraction of her normal grace and leaned over the bed, cupping Steve’s face.  “You hear us?” she whispered with tenderness and love that most would think Black Widow strictly incapable of feeling let alone expressing.  She shivered through a long breath.  “We’re waiting for you.  So you need to wake up.  We all want you back, and this has gone on too long.”

“You listen to her, Steve,” Tony warned, forcing a smile so stiff that his face hurt.  “She’s gonna give you the frown.  You don’t want the frown.”

Natasha didn’t give him the frown.  Instead she leaned down and kissed Steve’s forehead firmly.  She whispered something to him that Tony couldn’t quite hear, something about him, it seemed, because his name came up once or twice.  She pulled away, sniffling and rigid with her own vulnerability.  She crossed the end of Steve’s bed quickly and came over.  She hugged Tony hard, and Tony went stiff, too.  It felt like ages since someone had touched him, as weird as that was.  It didn’t take much – a breath and a beat – for him to settle into the embrace.  God, it felt good.  Still not right but good.  Apparently his body and all of his senses were as screwed up as his brain was.  Maybe everyone was right, and he was pushing too hard and draining himself too much and not eating and not drinking and not sleeping and _not leaving Steve’s side._   Maybe.

 _No._  

Natasha leaned back and cupped his jaw, too.  She lifted his face.  “I’m bringing you food.  I don’t care what you say.  And you’re eating it, every bit.  And then you’re sleeping.  Understood?”

Tony didn’t get a chance to argue.  She was already gone, her posture still unyielding as she quickly fled the room.

The silence returned.  Tony sat there, still feeling odd and misplaced.  Then he sighed.  “You know what, Steve?  You’re putting everyone through the wringer.  _Everyone._   You’re making Nat cry, you jerk.  So you need to wake up.”  He looked at Steve’s face again, Steve’s face that was so _still_ damn lax and empty.  “You’re pissing me off.  You’re pissing Clint and Thor off.  Bruce looked about ready to go green the last time he saw things weren’t getting better.  So wake up.  Wake up, damn it!  Come on, Steve!”  Nothing.  Tony folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair.  “Fine.  Suit yourself.  I’ll be here.”

And he was here, here in his chair right beside Steve’s bed with Steve’s hand clasped between his own.  Somewhere between now and later, he fell asleep.  _And Steve’s here._   “Hey, darlin’,” Steve said with that Brooklyn drawl he had sometimes when he was particularly swept up in the moment, whatever the moment was.  “You with me?”

Tony smiled in his sleep.  “Yeah, baby.  Yeah, I’m here.”

“’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“I don’t know how this happened.”

“Don’t think about that.  Just–”

“Hold onto me, Tony.  Hold onto me please.  I can’t live without you.”  Steve’s voice cracked again, and the ghost of his breath, warm and wet with tears, caressed Tony’s cheek.  “You can’t let me go.  Don’t give up.  Don’t let me go.”

Tony sank deeper into the dream.  _I won’t._

* * *

“I can’t believe you did this to me.”

Hearing Steve say that hurt.  Tony wondered for a moment if he was misunderstanding him.  Probably not.  He’d long reached the point where he _knew_ he was dreaming about Steve talking to him _as he dreamed it_ , so it made sense his subconscious was out to blame him.  His conscious self was doing it too, doing it en force, so _of course_ Fake Steve in his dreams and nightmares would be on board.

And Steve, real or fake, was suffering.  “I can’t believe you’d… you’d _leave_ me like this.”

“I’m not leaving you, Steve.  I’m not leaving you.  I’m staying here until you wake up.”

“You…  God.  Son of a bitch.”

“It’s alright.”  Tony tried to smile, but it was impossible.  “You can call me nasty stuff.  I know it bothers your Golden Generation sensibilities, but go ahead.  I’m an asshole.  I’m a freaking bastard.  I – I…  It’s okay.  Swear up a storm.  This whole thing is my fault.  My _goddamn_ fault.”

“You’re better than this, Tony.  I know you are.  I know you.  You wouldn’t give up on me.  Wouldn’t–”  And there Steve’s voice broke.  In every dream, Steve always sounded like this, worn thin and frightened and desperate.  Again, a reflection of what Tony himself was feeling.  It was like…  Like looking in a mirror and seeing Steve stare back and knowing they were connected on this fundamental level.  _Connected.  Right._   Not because Steve was awake or because they were in love or because their souls really were two halves of the same whole like Tony had said during those stupid vows he’d written.  They were connected because Tony was _projecting_.

But he supposed this was better than the alternative, better than nothing.  _Beggars can’t be choosers._

Steve’s voice cracked, and Tony could hear him take a breath.  “I need you to stay with me.  Please, Tony…  Please stay with me.  I can’t…”  _Jesus, baby._   “I can’t…  You can’t leave me.  You can’t give up on me.  If you let go…”

_You’ll die._

“He’s v-tach!  Somebody get the crash cart!”

“Hurry!”

“Do something!  We’re losing him!”

There was thunder booming, lightning lashing.  Pain and horror.  Steve shouting, terrified and broken and pleading and _dying._   And Tony was dying, too, because Steve was dying, and they were together, so if one went the other would follow.  If Steve died–

_I’ll die._

Tony came awake with a gasp, lurching forward in his chair.  His heart raced, and he couldn’t breathe, and over the awful throbbing in his skull he heard a shrill ringing and the cacophony of distant voices.  He couldn’t hear what they were saying, though.  It was a hum of deafening chaos.  People yelling.  Something screeching and blaring.  _Steve screaming._   Tony grimaced, grabbing his head and squeezing his eyes shut and groaning against the pain.  _If he dies, I die._

God, his head _hurt._

“Are you okay?”

Just like that, the hallucination was over.  The world went silent save for the swishing and beeping and the slow, meticulous thudding of Tony’s heart in his chest.  He opened his eyes and saw Thor there in the chair where Clint had been and Natasha had been – what?  Days ago?  Longer than that?  It had to have been a while.  The chair had moved again to a place even closer to the other side of Steve’s bed, and it was daylight out, but the light was gray with rain.  Tony ran his hand down his face and found the scruff of a beard rather than the goatee that he normally kept neatly trimmed.  Steve was clean-shaven, though.  Had he done that?  Once, after a bad mission last year or the year before, Steve had broken his arm and banged up his ribs and hurt his back and his leg and the list went on.  Now that Tony thought about it, that had been the last time Steve had been badly hurt.  They’d come home from the hospital, and Tony had spent the following days taking dutiful care of him.  At first it had been a little weird; truth be told, he hadn’t been used to playing nursemaid, partly because in his lonely life no one had much done that for him but mostly because being that patient and giving didn’t seem like it’d be something that would come naturally to him.  With Steve it had, though.  He could picture it now, the bath they’d taken together where he’d washed the grime of battle away from Steve because Steve hadn’t been able to do it himself, murmuring sweet nothings and little jokes to hide how deeply relieved he was that Steve was safe and Steve was home and Steve would be okay.  Shaving off the beginnings of a beard a week in the hospital had put on Steve’s face, kissing his lips afterward and running his callused fingers along the smoothness of Steve’s cheek and holding him close and letting himself breathe…

 _Am I okay?_   Tony opened his eyes again and forced his blurry vision to focus.  Yes, Steve’s face was clean and his hair was trimmed which meant someone had done it.  It had probably been him.  And Thor – _Thor’s here_ – was still calling to him.  “’m fine,” he replied, his voice sounded like hell.  He cleared his throat.  “Did you, uh…  Did you hear that just now?”

Thor looked extremely concerned.  It always seemed a strange thing on his face because he was so rarely troubled.  “What?”

It was stupid.  Those shouts and noises before…  They were probably the remnants of a nightmare.  He’d been having a lot of them, more nightmares than dreams now.  He wasn’t sleeping because he wasn’t leaving Steve’s side, and when exhaustion won out and took him down anyway, everything in his head had turned even darker and more confusing.  Steve talking to him was still a constant, but he couldn’t always remember what Steve told him.  Or what he thought Steve told him, since Steve wasn’t really telling him anything.  Steve had a goddamn tube down his throat, and even if he hadn’t had that, Steve was _still_ in a goddamn _coma._

So there was nothing to hear.  “Nothing,” Tony said bitterly.  He shook his head.  “It’s nothing.”

Thor didn’t seem convinced.  Tony didn’t know him all that well, not like Steve did at least.  Steve and Thor were chummy.  Tony supposed their friendship made sense; they were both men out of time and place, and they’d both spent the last few years navigating the complexities of life in the modern world.  They worked out together, ran their godawful ass-crack of dawn morning run around the city together, watched sports together, cooked together (both he and Steve were surprisingly adept in the kitchen, and they were both interested in trying as many new foods as possible).  They were complements, Thor’s loud, gregarious nature contrasting with Steve’s quiet, serious one.  Tony could appreciate that opposite personalities often fit together; he and Steve were a testament to that.  Secretly Tony had always been glad Thor was friends with Steve.  Not only did Thor nicely assume the “buddy” duties that Tony, for all he loved Steve, didn’t care to do (like the early morning jogging and the sparring and constantly working out and football and baseball and the like), but he was huge and pretty much undefeatable by conventional Midgardian weapons.

Not that that had done a damn bit of good the last time the Avengers had assembled.

Thor kept frowning.  “You have been talking a great deal in your sleep.”  Tony winced, but there was nothing but sympathy on Thor’s face.  And he made the same attempt they all had at one time or another.  “You should leave a moment and rest–”

“No.  Jesus Christ, _no._   No, I am not leaving.  No, I am not resting.  I’m not hungry.  I’m not tired, not enough that I have to sleep anywhere but here.  So that’s it.  Stop goddamn telling me what to do!”

Silence came.  The echo of his shout was awful.  It felt like it was reverberating in his skull.  With Thor scowling, Tony let his eyes slip shut.  That was a load of bullshit.  He was tired.  He was _so_ tired.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d really slept or the last time he’d left the room even.  Again, he probably had to have.  It was funny (in a sick, bitter sort of way) how he could look back now and see that his life had been condensed to Steve’s room, to this chair beside Steve’s bed, to Steve’s hand in between his own and Steve’s chest under his cheek and Steve’s dry skin beneath his lips.  Beyond that, he was having a hard time focusing on anything else.  That had been bad in the beginning, but it was so much worse now.  He’d heard this before, that when someone you loved was very sick, life was often reduced to this cloudy, foggy state of consciousness where you drifted because anchoring down in the real world was too painful and difficult.  A self-defense mechanism of sorts.  Life was rife with those nowadays.

Thor finally spoke, and the angry rejoinder Tony expected didn’t come.  Instead, Thor’s voice was soft and timid.  “Is…”  Tony opened his eyes again and saw the other man shifting uncomfortably in his chair.  Fidgeting.  That was another thing Thor rarely did.  “Is there any sign of improvement?  Any at all?”

Tony wiped his hand down his face.  “Jesus…” he whispered.  He didn’t know why everyone kept asking.  They were all here, day in and day out.  They came and went and came back.  Tony was pretty sure he was rarely if ever alone with Steve.  It was comforting in a way, and a sure sign of how much the others cared for Steve, cared for them _both._   _But everyone kept asking._   Didn’t they know nothing was better, that nothing, not even Bruce’s magic elixir, was working to bring Steve back to him?  Couldn’t they see that themselves?  And surely they were all talking to Bruce and to Steve’s team of doctors.  So what the hell?  Why keep forcing him to _say_ it?

Because they knew Tony knew best.  The smallest twitch, the minutest flutter of eyelashes, the tiniest change in that ever-droning beeping…  Tony would know.  Not that that mattered, either.  There was nothing to see, nothing to feel.  Nothing to know.  “No.  He’s not better.”  Maybe that was why they kept pressing.  To force him to _see_ that, to say it, to acknowledge it and accept it.  Suspicious and wary, Tony gritted his teeth before forcing himself to relax.  “Why?”

“It’s nothing,” the demigod said, although that was so dismissive it could only be a lie.

And Tony wasn’t going to be appeased, because something was clearly up.  “Why?”

Thor sighed.  That, too, was off, and Tony was reminded of another time far from here when Steve and Thor had been on the couch in the common room, Thor laughing loudly with a bowl of popcorn on his lap and Steve shouting at the TV after the refs had made a bad call…  Thor was silent now, silent and hesitant.  His eyes settled on Steve’s limp body.  Finally, he forced himself to speak.  “There was talk among the doctors this morning that he is…  Bruce believes he’s…”  He couldn’t finish.

Tony lost his temper.  He knew what the doctors were talking about.  He’d overheard it once or twice.  But it was one of those things that was too painful to consider, so he’d blotted it from his memories.  “He’s what?” he snapped, as if daring Thor to say it.

“He is dead,” Thor admitted softly.  Tony jerked.  Of course that was true.  He might have been out of it from chronic lack of sleep and whatever effects of the concussion still somehow lingering after all this time, but he _knew_ that this was the end of it.  Steve wasn’t getting better.  The last scans had revealed the extent of the damage, and there was _still_ a significant amount of it, both to the cerebrum and the brain stem.  He had no response to pain.  No cranial nerve reflexes.  He wasn’t breathing on his own, even though the damage to his chest was healing.  His EEG was goddamn _flat._   Tony wasn’t a moron.  He _knew_ all this, hence the anger that had been building of late.  He couldn’t even say when he’d heard it all.  He just knew he’d heard it and that it was probably _true_.

Thor heaved something that sounded suspiciously like a sob.  But he was blunt.  Viciously so.  “He is dead.  That is what the doctors believe.  Bruce’s plans have not succeeded.”

“The treatment needs more time–”

“It has been many weeks since Bruce started.”  Tony felt the room spin again, and he felt like he was going to puke.  _Many weeks._   It seemed that he’d lost track of time yet again.  Everything was jumping and jerking around.  Apparently it had been _many_ weeks since Bruce had tried to strengthen the serum.  Many weeks since he’d feasted on hope and let himself believe this could get better.  That meant numerous months had passed since Steve got hurt.  _Months._

And Steve wasn’t better.  He wasn’t getting better.  Steve was clinically _dead._   If not for the machines pushing air into his lungs and delivering oxygen to his tissues so his heart could beat, he’d have _physically_ died weeks ago.  Months ago.  In that building when everything had come down on top them.  Steve should have died then and there _in Tony’s arms._

Tony reeled, the ache in his head coming back fiercely, and Thor went on, went on in an argument Tony felt like he’d heard a bunch of times before.  It was getting harder and harder to ignore it (and the agony).  “It pains me so to see him like this and to see you destroy yourself.  You are deluding yourself, swallowing senseless hope like poison.  You must seek true reprieve, particularly given how weak and sick you have become.  Given how are you…”  Thor shivered, and the indignant frustration on his face was striking.  “You should not sacrifice yourself to save him.”

“Yeah, well, he’d do the same for me,” Tony snapped, and now he needed to touch Steve again.  He grabbed his hand and held tight, anchoring himself because there seemed to be another storm brewing.  “He would never give up on me.  That’s what love is.  But even if we weren’t together, he’d _still_ sacrifice himself to save me.  He’d do anything to save anyone.”

“You sell yourself short,” Thor remarked sternly.  “I know you love him.  I know how much you do.  I _know_ that.”  Did he?  How could he?  How could _any_ of them?  None of them knew that Steve was talking to him, that Steve could reach him somehow.  That they were connected.  Tony bristled and pulled tighter into himself.  “But you are worth far more to all of us than this.  You should not stay locked in this… in this _prison_ , draining yourself dry for the meager chance that he will survive this.  You give and give and give yourself until there is nothing left, and I fear it will end senselessly!”

“Then get out,” Tony snapped.  “Jesus, why the hell did you come in here if this is what you want to say?  You know I’m not going to give up on him!  I don’t care what it does to me, what it costs!  I’m not leaving him!”

“I care about him a great deal, but he’s lost,” Thor insisted firmly, though not cruelly.  His blue eyes were blazing, and Tony couldn’t look away no matter how he tried.  “He’s lost.  It hurts so miserably to face the truth, but I cannot in good conscience allow this to continue in silence.”  Thor’s eyes flashed.  “You should have let him go this morning.”

 _This morning._   Now those sounds came back in a rush, the yelling and the alarms wailing and God, how could he have not made sense of this before?  What, was he repressing traumatic memories as they happened now?  Was his brain shutting them out so they couldn’t hurt him, denying reality automatically so that he wouldn’t have to face it?  Was he _that_ desperate, that _screwed up_?  Thor’s face softened.  “He was trying to die.”

Tony shook his head emphatically, sick at the mere idea.  “You don’t know that.  They said he had a bad reaction to the drugs, that they caused some kind of anaphylactic–”

“He is trying to die in peace,” Thor said again.  “We are denying him that.  Every day we prolong this, we are denying him.  And we should not. I…”  His voice wavered, and he looked away to the window where rain fell like tears.  “It was my fault that this happened.  I was not careful in destroying the alien ship.  It was my fault it flew out of control and struck the building.  I didn’t stop to think–”  He stopped now.  He tucked his chin to his chest and breathed through his emotions.  “My guilt weighs upon me, as it does for all of our heavy hearts.  But I must be stronger than that now.  I must permit myself to see the truth.  I know, were our roles reversed, I would wish the honor of a death with dignity.”

“Get out,” Tony snarled again. 

“It is over,” Thor continued as if he hadn’t heard.  Or if he’d heard, he didn’t _care._   “It has been over for weeks.  We all believe it.”

“ _All_ of you, huh.  You’re all ganging up on me?  What, did you get the short straw of the bunch?  Is _that_ why you’re here?  Or are you too stupid to realize they gave you the shit job of convincing me to pull the goddamn plug?”

Thor didn’t rise to the bait.  “I am sorry, so _terribly_ sorry, but you must see that terminating life support is the only option!  The doctors have said this for quite some time to each other, but they have all been… afraid to approach you with the truth.  Not with you destroying yourself for his sake!”

“For _Steve’s_ sake!  Say his goddamn name!”  Tony couldn’t help but rage even though it _hurt._   For some reason, he hadn’t envisioned this eventuality.  For some awful, stupid, inexplicable reason, _this_ hadn’t occurred to him, that the hope to which he’d clung would fail and his _friends_ would betray him.  “If you want to throw him away like he means nothing, the least you could do is that!”

“You are ill and beyond reason now,” Thor insisted.  “We keep his body alive, but his soul has departed.  He has gone to wherever mortals dwell in death.  There is no spirit inside him.”

“No, you don’t know how wrong you are!  I hear him!  I–”

“Because you have not slept in weeks!  Because you will not eat!  Because you bleed yourself for him, day in and day out, until there is nothing left!”  Having his choices thrown in his face like this – _a reasonable explanation_ – was cold and cruel and undeniable.  Tony squeezed his eyes shut from the pain ratcheting through his head.  _It’s not real.  You know that.  Steve’s not really there!_ “You cannot see how far you have fallen, how dangerous this is.  It is madness, and you have blinded yourself to that.  Your love and devotion to him has blinded you.”

“Don’t you dare–”

“This is not what he would want.”

“You don’t know what he’d want, so don’t you tell me–”

“He languishes like this!  We keep him alive for our benefit, not his!  You have to see that!  There is no hope now!”  Tony sank into his chair, sank down deep.  The world felt like it was collapsing, the beeping and swishing getting louder and louder, and for just a moment, that beeping matching his own pulse was all he could hear, all he could _feel_.  Christ, he was lost in this nonsense.  He’d gotten himself lost in it.  He was exhausted beyond the pale, sick with it, demented and delusional.  Thor was right.  He couldn’t see how crazy it was, how far into the illusion that Steve and he were _together_ he’d tumbled.  _Down the goddamn rabbit hole._

Thor was still talking.  “There is no hope,” he murmured again, “and we dishonor him by continuing fruitlessly.  I know how difficult this is for you, and, believe me, I share your pain.  I would gladly bear this burden with you if you will let me.  We all would.  Please consider letting him go.  Bruce assures me he would not be in any pain and–” 

 _Enough._   Tony wasn’t going to sit here and listen to this.  Not to this.  Not ever.  It was petty and ridiculous, but he couldn’t stand to hear that he was _wrong._ “Leave,” he demanded.  “ _Now._ ”

It seemed Thor would argue more, with his jaw clenched so hard and his eyes fixed into a hurt glare.  Thankfully, he didn’t.  He just did as Tony asked, standing and gazing sadly upon Steve.  His footsteps seemed to echo until he was out the door.

Tony shuddered.  Panic rent through him, and he couldn’t catch his breath.  “Goddamn it, Steve,” he moaned.  He reached for Steve’s hand, snatched it off the bed, held it tight.  Pressed it to his cheek and closed his eyes.  “Touch me.  Come on.  Don’t you feel me?  I’m right here, baby.  Please.  Please touch me.”  But Steve’s hand was completely limp, and the second Tony loosened his grip, it nearly slipped back to the bed.  Tony gasped a sob.  For all the crying he’d done during this blur of hell, he hadn’t completely broken down since the beginning.  He was fairly sure of that.  And he was sure he was going to fall apart now, disintegrate completely, because as much as he fervently wanted to argue and deny, _he knew Thor was right_.

Denial.  When faced with a reality one couldn’t accept, denial was the best option.

“Steve… You have to give me a sign or something now.  I know it’s crazy, and I know I shouldn’t believe in this kind of bullshit, but you need to tell me what to do.  Tell me you can hear me.  There’s no…”  He lost his nerve and whined, a low desperate thing that heralded his failing restraint.  “There’s no time anymore.  So you have to find your way back.  You have to show me you can hear me.  Right now.  Don’t – don’t give up.”  And the meager floodgates burst open.  Everything that had been building all this time poured out in a flood.  “ _Please_ don’t do this to me!  Don’t give up!  I’m right here!  All you gotta do is open your eyes.  Come on.  _Please!_   You have to do this now!  Don’t you understand?  _There’s no more time!_ I can’t keep holding on when… if you don’t wake up.  They won’t let me.  And I can’t – I can’t _torture_ us like this.  So you need to wake up now.  Right now.  _Now,_ Steve, because it’s time and we’re at the end of the line and this is – I – I don’t have anything more to give you.  Understand that?  There’s – there’s nothing more.”  Nothing more to offer.  Nothing more to do.  He’d waited.  Cried.  Begged.  Hoped.  Prayed.  Believed. _Failed._ “I don’t know what else there is.  So come on!  Come on, goddamn it!  If you don’t wake up now…  You need to wake up!  You hear me?  _You need to wake up!_ ”

Steve didn’t wake up.  He wasn’t going to wake up.  He couldn’t find his way back.

Tony closed his eyes and surrendered.

* * *

“I’m going to be okay, Tony.”

He could feel Steve beside him again.  In his dream.  _This_ reality, where Steve was alive and with him.  Tony kept his eyes shut, kept himself right here and basked in Steve’s life.  It wasn’t hard.  He was so beaten and defeated that waking again was damn impossible.  This was better.  Far more than nice and pleasant.  Vital and beautiful.  Perfect.  Home.  _Where he belonged._  

He could feel Steve’s heart beating, feel Steve breathing, all that warmth and strength.  Here Steve was still so warm and strong.  Steve’s arm was over his chest, Steve’s lips right to his neck.  “You don’t have to worry about me.  It’ll be alright.”

“How can it be?” Tony whispered.  “How can anything ever be okay again?”

“It will be.  I have to believe that.  I have to believe you’ll be okay, too.”

“Steve…”  _I love you.  I need you.  I’ll die without you.  I can’t lose you.  I can’t let you go.  I can’t ever let you leave me._   “Please…”

He felt something wet tickle the nape of his neck.  Steve was crying.  But he was smiling, too.  “You remember that time we got lost in the old subways when those Doombots trashed Uptown?  Your suit got fried.  I broke my leg.  And we couldn’t see a thing down there.”  Tony remembered.  They hadn’t been in love then.  They’d hardly been friends even.  It had been early on after the Avengers had formed, back when everything they’d done had pissed the other off.  So being trapped down in a maze of ancient, partially collapsed, spider-web encrusted subway tunnels, dragging a broken, frustrated, snippy Captain America around…  Well, it hadn’t been the best time.  “We kept arguing.  We argued _constantly._   God, I can still hear it sometimes.  You thought you knew the way up, and I thought you were an arrogant asshole incapable of listening to anyone else.  And you kept complaining about how heavy I was.”

“I think I specifically said ‘your ass is heavy’,” Tony corrected.  “Even back then, I was obsessed with it.”

Steve chuckled.  “Well, I’m not heavy.  You haven’t done much complaining since.”

“No.”

They were quiet for what felt like a long time.  The darkness shifted and rose around Tony, rose like a deep, inky ocean.  The waves grabbed at him, trying to pull him away.  Steve anchored him.  Steve always anchored him.  “I didn’t tell you then but that was where I kinda…  Kinda fell for you.”

Tony beamed.  Sure, he knew his subconscious projection of Steve was buttering him up, but he couldn’t care.  It felt good, and after so much suffering and anguish.  So good.  “Did you?”

“You got under my skin so much.  Drove me crazy.  I couldn’t stand it.  You were…   You were so damn arrogant.  So rude and pushy and obnoxious.  And so…  Right.  There, I admitted it.  Three years after the fact.”  Steve chuckled again.  “You were right about how to get out of there.  You were right that I was being a pain in the ass.  You were right.”

“You can say it a few more times,” Tony teased.  “Go ahead.”

“God, there’s fire in you.  In your eyes.  In your heart.  Never met anyone like you.  Never.  And I…  I have to say it now.  I wanted to at our wedding, but…  The truth is I’m not as strong as you.  Never have been.”

“No, Steve–”

“Not as strong and not as brave.  You went through so much, and you came out a better man.  You fought through it all and never let it bring you down.  And after New York, I knew you were hurting.  You were hurting and we didn’t get along at all but you still took the time to show me… _everything_.  Not just how to use the internet and cell phones and computers.  Not just how things are now.  Not even the million and one things I needed to know.  You showed me who I was when I didn’t even know myself anymore.  You taught me how to be who I needed to be.  Who I wanted to be.  You taught me that this is where I belong, right with you.  Just like it was down in those tunnels…  You carried me.”

“Steve…”

“So…”  Steve’s voice broke.  He shivered, clutching Tony tighter.  “So that’s why I know I’ll be okay.  I’m not scared.  You love me.  I know you always will.”

“I do,” Tony whispered, heart heavy and barely beating.  “I do.  I love you so much.”

“I’ll be okay,” Steve murmured.  “We both will.  I just…  I can’t watch you suffer anymore.  I know you are.  I can feel it.  So I have to do this.”

“You can’t leave me, Steve!  You can’t!  Please don’t go…”

“I have to do this, Tony.  I have to.  It’s time.  They’re here.”

Tony jolted awake because he heard the door open.  He stumbled away from Steve’s bed, the sound of Steve’s soft voice chasing him from his dreams and back to harsh hell of reality.  He blinked and blinked until the dizziness settled, until he could see again.

They were all there.  Clint.  Natasha.  Thor.  Bruce.  Their eyes were wet, faces pale and forlorn.  They looked broken, shattered, submitting to something they could accept but only just.  Bruce had a clipboard in his hands that looked vaguely familiar; it was probably the same one Tony remembered from earlier.  The same one with the legal documents he’d signed without reading from Steve’s bedside.  He didn’t need to read them.  He’d made the decision.  He supposed he’d been dreading it since the beginning.  Even when he’d been alive with hope and determination, it had danced around the back of his mind.  Now it was here.

He was giving them permission to end Steve’s life.  To _terminate_ life support.  To turn off the ventilator breathing for him and allow him to slowly but painlessly pass away from hypoxia.  The doctors would not try to resuscitate him once that began to happen.  They would let him go until that steady beeping was nothing but a monotone moan.  Until Steve was gone.  There was really no choice.  No more treatment options.  No hope that Steve was going to recover.  He was dead in mind and soul if not in body.  And Tony had never felt more of a traitor in his life.  He’d never felt more betrayed, too, betrayed by the very people standing in front of him.  Betrayed by Steve, because Steve had vowed to be with him, to stay with him, through thick and thin and all that nonsense, to _love_ him.  Not leave him.

But this was it, and that was what Steve was doing.

Bruce finished looking over the forms, double-checking, Tony supposed, and making sure he knew what he needed to do.  What steps were required to kill Captain America.  _Son of a bitch.  You goddamn bastard.  How could you?  How–_

“You’re doing the right thing,” Bruce assured with a forced smile.  “The best you can do for him now.”

Natasha nodded, her eyes filled with restrained tears.  “You held onto your hope for so long.  You really honored him with that.  There’s no reason to feel ashamed or disgusted at yourself.”  _You don’t know how the hell I feel._

“He wouldn’t want you to tear yourself up,” Clint added hesitantly, reluctantly, like he wasn’t quite as sure as the others.  His eyes flicked to Steve in the bed, and he shook his head and backed away.  “He wouldn’t want _any_ of us to.”  _You don’t know what he wants!_

“Strength, my friend,” Thor reminded in a gentle rumble.  “You are not alone.  We stand with you.”

No one was standing with him.  Maybe they were there, in the room and offering up their useless support, but they were nothing more than ghosts.  Tony was alone, for all intents and purposes.  Alone and sinking down again.  The world was that same muted gray that it always was, distant and off-kilter and not right at all.  He felt sick and tired and weak, his grief threatening with every shivery breath.  He was lost, and Steve was leaving him like this.  Steve was being taken from him, and he wasn’t coming back.  How could that be happening?  How was this right?  How?

What nightmare was this?  He’d asked that over and over again.  _What kind of nightmare was he living?_

At least…  At least this would end it.

Bruce shuffled to the machines.  Tony didn’t watch him work, _couldn’t_ watch him start to switch them off.  He couldn’t bear to look at the monitors.  To his understanding, it could take some time for Steve to actually die now.  Minutes.  Maybe many minutes.  So there was still time.  He’d had such an odd relationship with time from the beginning.  Unable to track it, yet so acutely feeling the push and pull and drag of it.  Hating it for how slow it was, how meaningless.  Now this was the end, and these final few minutes…  He had to make them meaningful, make them _last_.

Even realizing that, though, he was stuck where he was.  Paralyzed, it seemed.  Bruce shut everything down and turned off the sound of the monitors so they wouldn’t have to listen to Steve die.  The beeping stopped.  So did the swishing.  Constant companions, quiet in an instant.  Tony closed his eyes.  He listened as the others made their peace one at a time, coming to Steve’s side with sobs mixed in with their words and tears streaming unabashed down their faces and hands desperately seeking a final touch and some sort of absolution.  There was no sense in being strong anymore.  No sense in hiding how much they were coming apart.  He let them each have this.  He didn’t listen.  It wasn’t his business anyway.  All he knew was he wanted them gone now, because they were taking these last minutes away from him, and he selfishly wished to have every one of them to himself.

Finally, they left, Bruce with his arm around a silently weeping Natasha, Clint white and lost, Thor with his head hung and his hands balled into helpless fists.  The door shut softly behind them.  Tony still stood.  His skin tingled.  It was hard to breathe.  His heart felt like it couldn’t beat.  He was cold, _so cold._   Despair battered him, and the world cracked and crumbled, falling away until there was nothing but him and the bed and his love’s dying body. 

So Tony did the only thing left to do.  He pushed his aching body, with its leaden limbs and shattering heart, up onto the bed.  This was how this nightmare had started.  He supposed it was fitting that this would be how it ended.  There was hardly any room, but that was okay.  He pressed close, as close as he could, and laid his arm over Steve’s chest and reached across his body to grab his left hand and pull it to him.  He kissed each of Steve’s fingers before weaving their hands together.  Then he buried his face in the cooling skin of Steve’s neck, pressing his lips to the weak fluttering of Steve’s pulse, felt the slow, uneven beat of his heart, and closed his eyes.

There wasn’t anything to say.  Nothing more, really.  Nothing but this.  “I love you.”

Everything was blurred together so badly, nightmares and hallucinations and whatever else he’d lived all this time, that he heard Steve answer him.  “I love you, Tony.”

Tony smiled.  Steve was right.  This would be okay.  They’d be okay.  He was so tired that he didn’t try to fight as the gray dimmed and dimmed around him, as the world quieted and went still.  _If you die, I’ll die._   He knew that wouldn’t happen.  They weren’t connected, not really, but even if they were, he didn’t want to give up.  Steve didn’t want him to give up.  He’d said it over and over and over again.  _Don’t give up.  Don’t let go._   So he wasn’t going to let go.

But at least if he slept, he could dream.  And Steve would still be there.  So he took a deep breath, held Steve close, and went down into the darkness.

And Steve _was_ there.  He was there in his dreams, waiting like he always was.  Only…

“Tony?”

Something…  Something wasn’t right.  The darkness was suddenly far away, replaced instead with light.  The light got brighter and brighter.  Blinding.  Terrified, he tried to squeeze the hand in his own.  _Steve’s hand._

“Tony?  Tony!  Tony, can you hear me?  Did you just…  _Bruce!_ ”

The world exploded.

He opened his eyes.  Sensation flooded over him in a consuming wave, and the information stream was so chaotic and _new_ that he couldn’t parse it.  It was like his nerves were abruptly awake and firing in complete discord.  Everything hurt.  His head.  His eyes.  Every part of his body.  And he couldn’t move.  He couldn’t talk.  He couldn’t _breathe._

“Bruce, he squeezed my hand!  Hurry!  Turn everything back–”

“Steve–”

“Bruce, for God’s sake, listen to me!  _He woke up!”_

_I…  I woke up?_

Suddenly there was air.  He wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he did.  He felt muscles inside him moving.  His lungs moving.  His heart _beating_.  He felt something down his throat, other things on him and around him.  More than that all of that, though, he felt _life._   He squirmed uncomfortably at the raw and awesome power of that.  Steve’s fingers were in his hair, soothing him.  “Don’t, Tony.  Don’t fight it.  It’s helping you breathe.  Just stay awake, okay?  Stay awake.  Look at me.  I’m right here!  Look at me, baby, please!”  Focusing seemed impossible, everything a haze of light and shadows, but he blinked and freed trapped tears and blinked again until he saw blue.

_Steve’s eyes._

Steve let loose a ragged laugh, tears streaming down his face.  “There!  You got me now, Tony.  Don’t let go.  Don’t look away.  I’m here.  I’m…”   Steve’s hand was tight around his, squeezing nearly to the point of pain, and he was peppering Tony’s cheeks and forehead with kisses.  Tony closed weary eyes, overwhelmed and reeling, and fought to do just as Steve asked.  _Stay awake._ “You came back,” Steve gasped around a heavy sob.  He cried into Tony’s shoulder.  “You came back!  Thank God you came back…  Oh, God, Tony…  Tony!”

There was noise behind them, a thunder of footsteps followed by a cacophony of voices.  Voices alight with shock and joy and euphoria.  Familiar voices.  Blurry faces assembled around the bed.  Tony’s brain was sluggish, and nothing made sense.  Not the doctors reacting with shock and alarm.  Not Clint and Natasha, talking too quickly for him to follow.  Not Thor and his ridiculously huge smile and his hand on Steve’s shoulder.  Not Bruce, fumbling to the side from where the beeping and the swishing was coming.  The beeping and swishing was back.

_His heartbeat.  His breathing._

Tony choked and squirmed, unable to process _any_ of this – the truth, in fact, that he’d been the one all along…  He couldn’t process anything except for the fact that Steve was there.  Steve was crying and holding him and kissing his face and welcoming him home.

* * *

Strange things happened.  Tony’s life was a testament to that.  Being Howard Stark’s son.  Becoming Iron Man.  Struggling through the dark threats he’d faced.  Being an Avenger amongst gods and monsters and super soldiers and expert assassins.  Fighting aliens and evil tyrants and demons and robots.  Falling in love with and marrying the man his father had helped create _seventy years ago_ , the man who’d somehow found his way into the future and into Tony’s arms and heart.  That was maybe the most incredible thing of all.  It was almost like it was meant to be.  So strange things occurred, and they occurred all the time.  Amazing and unbelievable things.  Unexplainable things.  Things that beggared belief.  Things that would seem impossible if not for the fact _they’d happened._

Like, for instance, dreaming Steve was in a coma when, in fact, _Tony_ had been the one in the coma _the whole time_.

Not long after waking up from an apparently two-month long hibernation, Tony still couldn’t wrap his mind around it.  The confusion he was suffering after slowly (painfully slowly) returning to himself was deep and fairly encompassing.  Some amount of disorientation was also pretty logical, considering what had happened to him, the long weeks in a brain-dead state and the damage he’d sustained.  That was good.  That way he wouldn’t seem _too_ weird when he tried to reconcile reality with what he’d thought had been reality.  Everything had felt so real, so vivid.  God, his brain was a crafty bastard sometimes.  A rough explanation was pretty obvious.  While he’d been unconscious, he’d heard the others, Clint and Natasha and Bruce and Thor, coming and going.  He’d heard the doctors.  He’d heard all of that, the diagnosis and the prognosis and the treatment plans.

But he’d _heard_ all that because they’d come to talk to Steve, to Steve who hadn’t left his side hardly at all from the minute he’d been brought into the hospital.  Steve had been buried with him when the building had come down, but Tony’s mind had flipped them around and switched everything up and gotten it _backwards_ from the start.  _Tony_ had taken the brunt of it.  Iron Man had been completely crushed by the weight of the debris, so badly that his head had still been severely injured by the impact even with his helmet.  But he’d saved Steve.  The armor had protected Steve, shielded him.  Steve had escaped with a few broken ribs, a broken ankle, and a pretty serious concussion.  Steve had been spared the worst of it.

And Steve had been right with him every moment as Tony had languished with the traumatic head injury.  _Steve_ was the one who hadn’t left.  He was the one who’d refused to go back to the Tower and sleep and eat.  He was the one who’d refused to give up hope.  The others had come and gone, but they’d been talking to _Steve_ , not to Tony.  _Steve_ had kept a vigil over _Tony._   None of what he’d remembered had actually happened the way he remembered it.

However, Steve had talked to him.  When Tony had imagined Steve’s voice or thought he was dreaming about him…  He hadn’t been imagining or dreaming at all.  _That_ had been real.  Steve had been there at his side, holding his hand and kissing his face and staying as close as he could.  He’d been begging Tony to hold on, to stay strong, to wake up and not give up and _not let go._ Steve had said those things, and Tony had thought he’d meant for Tony to anchor _him_ in the living world, to not give up on him, to not let _Steve_ go.

So the world, the _reality_ , Tony had lived was a lie.  It had been upside down, twisted inside out, wrong and off-kilter.  Even though the explanation had come fairly easily, recognizing what it meant was difficult.  He couldn’t accept it.  He’d been brain dread.  How could he have heard anything?  How could he have dreamed or hallucinated anything?  His brain had been _dead._ Thoughts still.  Senses silent.  Neurons not firing in any meaningful way.   He twisted the whole insane situation around and around in his head, _how_ this could have happened, _how_ he could have so vividly imagined himself in Steve’s place…  There was no explanation, at least nothing that satisfied him.  Fate?  Love?  Magic?  He didn’t believe in stupid stuff like that.  He was a man of science underneath his eccentricities, and thinking through the situation (which he did a lot at night when he was alone in his hospital room save for Steve slumbering in the tiny and probably extremely uncomfortable chair next to his bed) always delivered him to the same invariable conclusion.  Logic dictated that none of things he’d imagined had happened to him.  So there _had_ to be a reason he’d dreamed what he had, a valid, legitimate reason.

But he just couldn’t figure it out, and that frustrated him to no end.  All that stuff he’d thought about strange things happening?  _Bullshit._   That wasn’t good enough.  Not for him.  And everything was so completely impossible that he just _couldn’t_ believe things had happened as they had, so for a few horrid days right after waking up, he wondered if he wasn’t dreaming _now._  He wasn’t so miserable and distraught with letting Steve die that he was fabricating _this_ role reversal as a last ditch effort to spare himself.

Well, it didn’t seem that way.  This new world was filled with color and sound.  It wasn’t dim and gray and he wasn’t detached from it.  There was activity, a lot of it, and he was engaged in a great deal of _real_ interactions.  Steve was always at his side, smiling like he couldn’t believe he’d been so blessed.  The other Avengers were there, too, in fits and spurts, Bruce most commonly as he administered more of a special treatment, the last doses of what Tony needed to recover.  It was becoming increasingly obvious that the circumstances of Tony’s dream had been accurate, at least.  Tony had been dead, kept alive by only the machines breathing for him.  The doctors were positively floored that he’d recovered at all, and not just that.  Coma patients usually awoke at varying rates and in varying levels of awareness, and there was commonly lingering damage, not to mention muscle weakness and atrophy and the effects of the other injuries he’d sustained months ago.  However, Tony was coming back to himself remarkably well.  He was making very fast progress.  He was off the ventilator almost instantly and regaining control of his body at a rapid rate.  He was stronger every day.  Awake longer and longer every day.  More and more _aware_ every day, and in real, tangible ways.  It was grounding and rapidly becoming more and more convincing.  He was working hard to get himself back, despite his mental insecurities.  It only seemed natural, and he had energy now.  He was warm and sore, but the pain felt _real,_ not this ghostly thing that tormented without cause or meaning.  He liked the pain.  He liked the taste of air and the touch of Bruce’s hand to his and feel of the bed and the sound of Thor’s laugh and Clint’s wry smile as he joked about how shitty the hospital food was and Natasha’s placid expressions that did nothing to hide how relieved she was.  The feel of Steve’s lips to his and Steve’s hands still holding him and caressing him and the sound of Steve’s voice.  It was the only comfort in the world he really needed.  In _this_ real world.

Plus, he didn’t think he’d hallucinate the pain in the ass that was physical therapy.  Christ, what a waste of time.  However, he labored through that with gusto, Steve right with him to encourage him.  It was surreal how quickly he was getting better, and he didn’t think dead (or dreaming) would be this stiff and sweaty and achy.

So his ordeal was becoming this weird memory that felt real but wasn’t real.  He was forced to convince himself more and more that all of it – the long hours he’d imagined at Steve’s side and the one-sided conversations he’d had and the suffering he’d done with Steve withering in front of him – hadn’t actually happened.  No, _Steve_ had lived the hell Tony had dreamed.

And Steve had been the one to save him.

Of course, one of the tenants of scientific theory was finding some evidence to substantiate his conclusions.  Simple observation only went so far, particularly with his own senses (and mind) pretty muddled and confused.  On top of that, people were being rather… _indirect_ with him.  It was impossible to get a straight answer out of _anyone_ as to what had happened.  Tony could be persistent (aka a pain in the ass) when it suited him, but his inquiries went annoyingly unanswered every time he questioned someone as to how he’d woken up, what had really happened, why Steve looked like a goddamn freight train had hit him and run him over again and again and again.  Tony hadn’t noticed that particular detail at first because he’d been so screwed up and too involved in the overwhelming shock of everything to pay attention to anything other than himself.  Now it was pretty undeniable.  And Steve was disappearing a lot.  He was never gone long, maybe thirty minutes at most, but he returned paler and dragging even more.  He didn’t answer Tony when he asked where he’d gone, at least nothing beyond a dismissive “nothing to worry about” and a peck on his lips.  Steve always had been and always would be a terrible liar.

Steve was a bit tense around him, too.  Not himself.  Considering what they’d just been through as a couple, that probably made sense.  Maybe Steve couldn’t let himself accept this as truth, either, like he was beset by an irrational terror that if he did, Tony would end up back in the coma.  Also, Steve wasn’t sleeping well.  Tony had to imagine, if his dream _had_ been reality and Steve had been the one to miraculously wake up right at the end, he would have finally succumbed to complete, contented exhaustion and slept the best sleep of his life.  But Steve hadn’t collapsed like that, not that Tony had seen (and Steve had, once again, hardly left his side, even if they weren’t _really_ talking about anything more than surface stuff).  Steve almost seemed ashamed and guarded, two things he very rarely was, and that was odd.  More than odd.  _Upsetting._

Tony had to know the truth.

Thus as Steve slept this night, his breathing slow and steady and his body relaxed despite the fact it was crammed into that awful chair, Tony decided that staying quiet and compliant about this all was stupid.  Now that his brain was _working_ again, he wanted answers.  “I want to know what happened.”

Bruce was there, stringing another bag of something onto Tony’s IV.  He was being rather surreptitious about what he did, carting these medicines around in a little cooler.  Bruce was about as good at being sneaky as Steve was at lying.  Tony had seen the contents of the bags was some sort of pale blue liquid.  If that wasn’t a sign, he didn’t know what was.  Bruce played dumb.  “What do you mean?”

Tony stared at him in the low evening light, frowning in irritation.  “I mean why am I not dead.”  Bruce hesitated, but something akin to reluctance crossed his features in a wince.  Tony sighed, trying to settle more into the hospital bed.  After a week now awake and aware, he was beginning to realize it was really uncomfortable.  The novelty and joy over, well, not being dead was wearing off.  “Okay, so here’s the thing.  I know him.”  Tony tipped his head toward Steve just as Steve snored lightly.  “And I know all the rest of you, too.  And it’s pretty damn obvious you guys are all not telling me something.  News flash: of the lot of you?  Tash is the only good liar, and even she is doing a shit job right now.”  Bruce said nothing to that, biting his lower lip and finishing up with the IV.  “Plus I’m not stupid.  That’s another thing that seems to have magically not happened, despite the fact that my brain was battered into mush.”

“Tony, that’s not funny.”

“What’s not funny is the fact that my husband obviously practically killed himself for my benefit, and I’d like to know the particulars,” Tony sharply said.

Bruce sighed, glancing at Steve.  He hesitated a moment that way he always did when he was weighing his (limited) options.  Then he succumbed, because Bruce was predictable like that.  “I used the serum to save you.”

“I know that.”

Bruce’s brow creased in confusion and then betrayal, and that more than anything told Tony they’d all been working together to keep him in the dark.  “How…  Did one of the others tell you?”

He couldn’t be honest about how he knew (because, frankly, he didn’t _know_ how he knew), so he lied.  “No.  I figured it out.  Not stupid, remember?”

Bruce sighed.  He looked at Steve again, watching more carefully like he was trying to discern if the other man would wake and catch him spilling the beans.  Tony tried to be patient as he waited.  Eventually Bruce convinced himself to continue.  “Look, Tony, he was hurt pretty badly when that building came down on you guys.  Not as bad as you but bad enough.”

Tony averted his gaze hotly.  He’d had a feeling that everyone had lied to him about that.  He shook his head.  “But that was months ago.  The serum should have…”  Then it occurred to him.  All those conversations with Clint and Natasha and Thor he thought he’d had…  They made more sense now.  They hadn’t been worried about him.  They’d been worried about Steve, because Steve had been _literally_ giving everything he had to save Tony.  _Draining_ himself dry.  He glanced at the bag of blue medicine.  _Elixir._ “Christ, how much blood did you need?”

Bruce paled, looking pretty horrified and guilty even if this wasn’t his fault.  “A lot,” he quietly confessed.  “You know I’ve been trying for months to find a way to isolate the serum in Steve’s blood and extract it.  Unfortunately, the best I could do was still pretty poor, and the amount of serum we needed to save you…  It was a longshot, but he kept giving and giving, Tony.  We needed so much just to get what we got, and even that wasn’t working.  He just offered up _more_ , like that was the answer.”

“Apparently it was the answer!” Tony hissed.  His eyes burned all the sudden, and he jabbed his teeth hard into his lower lip to stop it from shaking.  He was so goddamn _angry_ , and he stared at Steve with his heart pounding.

Bruce frowned as the monitor picked up Tony’s racing pulse and gently grabbed Tony’s shoulder.  “Hey, take it easy.”

He wasn’t going to take it easy.  “How could you let him do that?  If he was hurt–”  He couldn’t finish.  If Steve was injured, his body had needed the serum it was producing to heal _himself._   And he’d denied himself that, offered up his blood and all the gifts it proffered to save _Tony._   Tony felt sick and weak and _wrong_ all over again.  “How could you let him keep doing it when there wasn’t any hope?”

“Tony…”

“Jesus!  It wasn’t working!  This serum cocktail you made almost killed me!”

Bruce’s mouth fell open limply, and Tony belatedly realized he probably shouldn’t have known about that, either, not what had happened to him or what had caused it.  “I was trying not to use so much of his blood, lowering filtering standards and…  Impurities got in there, Tony.  That’s what caused the bad reaction you had.  I’m so sorry.”

Bruce was misreading him, but in his defense, Tony was so freaking pissed off that it was easy to make that mistake.  “I’m not upset about that,” he seethed.  “I was dead already.  I’m upset that you didn’t stop him from hurting himself!”

“What did you want us to do?  We tried!  We tried to talk sense into him!  Shockingly he’s about as stubborn as you are, and he didn’t listen.  He wouldn’t stop giving blood, wouldn’t even leave your room.  He practically threw Thor out at the mere suggestion that he should give up!  We _tried,_ Tony.  It wasn’t until the end that Steve…”  Bruce stopped himself from saying anything more.  Sighing, he shook his head.  “Steve did what he did to save you.  He’d do anything for you, give anything for you.  You know that.”

“And he knew that it was risky and dangerous and stupid as hell,” Tony snarled spitefully.  He knew he was being petty, but he couldn’t stop himself, and he was pretty sure he’d damned well earned the right to be upset.  “He told you not to tell me, didn’t he?”

That was pathetically obvious.  Bruce sighed again.  “It was his call,” he said, a defensive note in his tone.  “He didn’t want you to have to worry about him when you need to be focusing on yourself right now.  And I’m pretty sure he didn’t want you to be thinking some nonsense about you not being worth it.”

“That’s bullshit,” Tony muttered.

“Don’t be angry with him,” Bruce returned calmly.  “Come on.  He has power of attorney.  It was his job to make the call, and he made it.  He saved your life.  And he’s going to be fine.  You know how amazing the serum is.  Despite what he put himself through, his injuries are long healed.  He just needs some substantive sleep and some decent food and some time to recover.  You both do.”  Bruce patted his shoulder.  “This is the last treatment.  If everything goes well, maybe in a couple of days you can go home.  Pretty damn remarkable.  So don’t be angry.  It’s stupid, and you’re not stupid, right?  You keep insisting you’re not.”  That was supposed to be a joke, but Tony didn’t think it was funny at all.  Bruce smiled weakly.  “Come on.  You’re okay.  He’s okay.  There’s no reason to be upset.”

That was probably true.  But as Tony laid there staring into the night, all he could hear was the soft beeping that mirrored his heart and the soft rhythm of Steve’s even breathing, and all he could think about was the sight of Steve, lying where he was now with a tube down his throat.  Only when he imagined it now, he saw needles in Steve’s veins and he was as white and lifeless as a corpse.  Exsanguinated so that Tony could live.  How could he not be upset?

* * *

They did go home a couple days later.  It should have been a miracle as Steve pushed Tony in a wheelchair out of the hospital where he’d nearly died – _where he had died_ – and toward the town car Happy had driven over to collect them.  Steve and Bruce helped him into the back seat.  Everything was still pretty tender, and he didn’t have the energy to move much.  Steve climbed in beside him, carrying a duffel bag of their stuff from the hospital.  He put his arm around Tony, and despite the unspoken tension that had been mounting between them, Tony leaned wearily into his side.  After Bruce promised to be back at the Tower a bit later to check on them, the car pulled away into the world.  Tony couldn’t help a shiver of fear.  This seemed unreal again, but now it was for different reasons.  _I should have died.  Would’ve died, if Steve hadn’t saved me._   Tony closed his eyes and let himself be held.

Coming home after so much time was weird and unsettling, to say the least.  On the one hand, spending one more second in the hospital was decidedly unappealing.  Granted, he’d only been awake for a couple weeks now, but the memories of his dream were as real to him as any other, so it felt like a great deal longer than that.  He wanted to go home, to get away from the sterility, the people, the lack of privacy.  He wanted to escape how his body had become a prison and his mind, apparently, a glorified torture chamber.  So home was nice.

On the other hand, though, home was daunting.  Home was _scary._   It meant moving on from it all.  It meant accepting permanently that what he’d dreamed _hadn’t_ been real.  And he _knew_ it hadn’t been.  He knew that.  The evidence in favor of Steve being the one in the coma was absolutely infinitesimal and completely contained to Tony’s mind.  But logic could be a pretty poor weapon against fear, and he was afraid.  Everything that had happened was damn terrifying, of course, and he still didn’t feel normal (it also scared him that “normal” could be a thing of the past after this).  What Steve had done for him…  It was stupid in a way, because Bruce was right.  They were both okay thanks to Steve.  That awful image, though…  Steve, bloodless and lifeless and splayed out on some sort of sacrificial altar for him…  Well, that was his new nightmare, and this one was somehow far more lodged in reality than the one in which he’d been trapped for months.

Tony was fairly certain going home meant addressing that.  Eventually, right?

Eventually happened a lot sooner than he was hoping.  Despite all this, waiting hadn’t gotten any easier for him.

JARVIS greeted him the second he limped into the lobby of the Tower.  “Welcome home, sir,” the AI sadly said.  There was relief in his tone as well, if a computer could feel such a thing.  Tony had programmed him to, and Steve had told him a couple times over the last few days how much JARVIS had missed him.  Honestly, though, how would Steve know?  Steve had hardly if ever come back here while Tony had been in the coma.

But he didn’t say any of the bitter thoughts in his head.  “Thanks, J.”

“The penthouse is ready, Captain Rogers,” JARVIS explained as they hobbled to the elevator.  The doors closed behind them, and the lift immediately started taking them up.  “The wheelchair is–”

“No,” Tony snapped almost reflexively.  “No wheelchair.”

Right away Steve frowned his Captain America frown.  Tony had to admit he’d missed the sight of it.  “Tony–”

He’d been wheeled around in a wheelchair for two weeks now.  He was done with that shit.  “I can walk.”

“You can barely stand,” Steve returned, and that was pretty much true.  Apparently he’d thought he was further along with having his strength and energy back than he actually was.  He was leaning whole-heartedly into Steve, Steve’s arm around his back probably the only thing keeping him upright.  He felt gross with sweat and shivery with shock again.  “You’re using the chair.”

“No.”  To hell if that was childish.

Steve sighed.  He knew better than to argue, so instead he just switched his tactics.  “Then I’m carrying you.”

“Double no.”

“Damn it, Tony–”

“Did it ever occur to you that I might want to walk into my home under my own power after what happened?”

Steve flinched ever so slightly probably because he could understand that.  He’d want to do the same.  But Tony could practically _feel_ his overprotectiveness like it was a physical thing trying to envelop him.  This had been going on over the last couple weeks, too, and in the beginning Tony hadn’t minded one bit.  Like _at all._   Now, with all this uncertainty and guilt and anger stewing in his heart, he didn’t think he could stand it.  “You need to take it easy,” Steve finally said, ending an uncomfortable beat of silence.  “Bruce said with – with the treatment you’ll make a full recovery, but–”

“The treatment?  What, you mean you giving up every drop of blood in your body so that Bruce could make a miracle cure using the serum?”

Steve stiffened, and even though Tony couldn’t bring himself to look his husband in the face, he could picture it well enough.  The color draining from his cheeks and his blue eyes widening and his mouth falling open a little in shock.  “Who told you?”

Tony felt like an asshole, but one of his nastier character traits was that when he went asshole, he usually went _all in_.  “Nobody told me.  I figured it out, Steve.  Genius, remember?  But even if I wasn’t half as smart as I am, it’s pretty damn obvious.  I was–”  He stumbled over the words a little.  It still made no sense!  “I was clinically brain dead.  One does not magically recover from that, not without a magic potion.”  The elevator dinged as they finally reached the penthouse.  Tony tried to take a step, but his muscles didn’t cooperate and rewarded him with a jolt of pain for demanding they make the effort.  “Damn it.”

Steve was there to steady him.  “You’re… you’re mad at me for saving your life?” he asked, and there was so much pain and fear wrapped up in that that Tony could hardly stand it.  He didn’t know why Steve was asking.  Obviously he’d been worried about this very outcome, hence all the deception (or the lies of omission, anyway).  “That’s what you’re mad about?”

Tony managed another step and another, like he was trying to run away from this stupid thing he’d just started.  “No, no.  Just…”  He sighed, closing his eyes and leaning against the side of the elevator.  “Just carry me.  Please?”

Steve seemed too surprised to move for a second, and Tony turned to look at him, _really look at him_ , for the first time in what felt like days.  He seemed fine.  A little pale, maybe, and a lot tired, but he was physically well.  That magic potion had healed them both.  But his eyes were wet like he was trying to hold back tears.  He nodded, slung their bag over his shoulder, and scooped Tony up bridal style as if he weighed nothing.  Tony closed his eyes and relaxed into Steve’s arms.  Breathed in Steve’s scent, Steve’s heat.  He knew this should be humiliating, being carried like some damsel in distress through their penthouse to their bedroom, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

The mere sight of their bedroom brought tears to Tony’s eyes.  It was just like he remembered it, pictured it when he thought about going back there without Steve in his dream – Steve’s sketchbook on the desk and Steve’s books piled on the coffee table and his sneakers by the closet and his jacket draped over the back of one of the chairs.  Steve’s shield, still scuffed and filthy from the fight all those weeks ago, right by the closet door.  But there were other things, too.  _Tony’s_ things.  Tony’s phone on his nightstand and a bunch of his socks dumped on the dresser and a bottle of his cologne on the coffee table next to Steve’s books and his sunglasses on the floor because they’d probably fallen from the pocket of his suit jacket where it hung on the closet door.  The things that would have made Steve heartsick and devastated when he’d come back here.  It made Tony heartsick now.

Steve dropped the duffel on the floor by the bed and took Tony to the bathroom.  He set Tony on the side of the ornate and ridiculously huge, tiled tub.  Then he dropped to his knees in front of him.  “Let me get you cleaned up, okay?” he said.  His eyes were still wet, but he was smiling.  “Bath’d be good.  You smell like hospital and sweat.”

Tony managed a grin.  “What, you don’t like hospital and sweat?  Sounds like a killer new fragrance.  I’ll call Gucci.”

Steve chuckled and tenderly kissed his lips.  “Be right back.”

Being alone even for a few seconds while Steve went out to gather up their pajamas and some towels and washcloths was too long.  Anxiety crawled over Tony, and nothing felt right again with Steve not there.  He was shivering by the time Steve got back, and he could see Steve silently berating himself for leaving at all.  Steve was quick but so careful and tender as he untied Tony’s sneakers and pulled them off and took his socks off, too.  Then he went to work on getting the hoodie Tony was wearing unzipped and ridding him of both it and the cold, sweaty shirt underneath.  Off went his jeans as well with nary a flirtatious comment.  They were both too tired and worn for that.  All the while, the bath was filling with hot water and steam and smell of clean soap spread through the bathroom.  Once Tony was in the tub (which had been a clumsy venture, considering how quickly his body was going from somewhat to completely useless), Steve stripped with methodical, military precision.  Tony was still shivering despite the heat of the water and the warm moisture in the air, and he continued to until Steve climbed in the bath with him and gathered him up and held him tight.

For a long time, they didn’t move.  It was too much to do anything other than that.  It was quiet aside from a drip or two, the soft sounds of the water.  The beating of their hearts.  Tony burrowed into Steve’s warmth, pressing his face in the place between Steve’s shoulder and his neck and focusing on breathing.  This all seemed too unbelievable, yet again impossible save for the fact it was happening.  They were here, both of them, both alive and recovering, and they were together.  Steve’s hands were slow moving up and down Tony’s back, and his arms were strong and immovable.  “I missed you,” he finally said, his lips brushing against Tony’s temple.  His voice hitched softly, and his grip turned even tighter.  “I missed you so much.”

Tony couldn’t find it within himself to answer, but that was okay.  He didn’t need to, at least not beyond pulling Steve even closer and melting even more into Steve’s embrace.  _I missed you, too._

It seemed to take Steve a great deal of effort to pull away, but he did.  He did with a struggling smile, wiping a wet hand through Tony’s hair before holding his face close and kissing him gently.  Tony wearily kissed back.  The heat was finally getting inside him, warming his blood and his bones, and he was getting even sleepier.  Realizing that, Steve focused on washing him, wetting a soft washcloth and lathering it up with Tony’s body wash before getting to it.  Tony sank down in the tub and let Steve work.  It felt so good, Steve’s fingers capable and tender, wiping away the sweat and the smell of sterility, soothing the many lingering aches and pains.  He washed Tony’s hair, gently massaging his scalp, kissing him as he tipped his head back.  Tony closed his eyes and drifted.

He was nodding off when he felt Steve grab the spray attachment and rinse his hair clean.  “Bed?” Steve murmured after he was done.  Tony barely cracked open his eyes and saw Steve’s sweet smile.  “We should get out before you fall asleep in here.”

“Wouldn’t be so bad,” Tony murmured.  “Too tired and comfy to move.”

Steve chuckled.  “We’d get kinda shrively.”

“We’d be shrively together, though.”

Steve laughed again.  It was like music.  “Come on.”

As much as Steve had done all the work so far, he did even more now, practically lifting Tony out of the water and putting him back on the edge of the tub before bundling him up in a couple of warm towels.  He did only a cursory job of drying himself, spending much more time getting Tony comfortable.  “You don’t need to take care of me like this,” Tony said as the quiet wore on and he realized more and more how little he was participating.

“’Course I do,” Steve replied as he worked a pair of boxers up Tony’s legs.  Tony swallowed a lump in his throat and let Steve finish dressing him in a pair of sweat pants and an A-shirt.  Steve got himself in some pajama bottoms and an A-shirt of his own.  “Let’s get you to bed.”

Tony started to stand and nearly toppled.  His head was spinning with too many thoughts and discordant memories, and his body simply withered.  Steve was there to catch him, though, and he draped Tony’s arm over his shoulders and looped his own around Tony’s waist and helped him limp to their bed.

It took a while to get there, but Steve didn’t rush him or insist on carrying him.  He was quiet and patient as Tony limped and struggled, bearing most of Tony’s weight without making even the slightest show of it.  Tony closed his eyes and trudged.  They’d make it, he knew.  They’d come this far.  It seemed weird, going back to where this whole crazy thing had started.  Where they’d been, Tony straddling Steve and covering him in kisses and sweet-talking his way into Steve’s pants when the call had come to assemble…  It seemed like a lifetime ago, and the world still wasn’t quite right.  Not quite what it had been.  Different and more fragile but stronger at the same time.  So he kept going and thought about that, about how things would balance out and go back to normal as long as they stayed together.

Steve helped him gingerly settle on the edge of the bed.  If Tony had been more with it, maybe he would have noticed that Steve wasn’t moving gracefully anymore, that he was the one shivering now, that he was struggling as he turned down their bed.  Overwhelmed and shattering.  As it was, it very much took him by surprise when Steve choked out a rough sob and all but collapsed in front of him.

Tony gasped as Steve buried his face in his lap, wrapping his arms around Tony’s waist like iron.  “You should be angry with me!” Steve cried.  “God, Tony, you don’t know what I did…”

Tony uselessly shook his head.  He was so tired now that he could hardly even remember _why_ he’d been angry before.  _Steve, killing himself for me._   That stoked his ire just a bit, but not enough to stop him from threading his hands through Steve’s hair and whispering, “What you did?”

Steve shuddered harder.  “You don’t know…”

“What?”

Steve’s fingertips dug into Tony’s back as he clung.  “I – I told them not to tell you because I’m a coward.  I’m such a coward, Tony!”

“Steve–”

“I can’t hide it, though.  Not what I did.  I know why you’re angry.  I know why!  And I should have told you before because you deserve that.  I gotta tell you now.”  _About using the serum?_ He already knew about that, so that couldn’t be it.  For all his efforts to try to make things make sense of late, it didn’t really occur to Tony that still nothing did.  None of this had _ever_ made sense.  He was too tired and stricken to recognize it anymore.  And Steve was going on anyway, offering a whispered confession.  “I – I…  I gave up on you.”

Tony hadn’t been expecting that at all.  “What?”

Steve flinched and clung tighter.  His voice shook with rough sobs.  “I gave up on you!  When the serum wasn’t working and you weren’t getting better, I told them to…  I told them to take you off life support!  They said it was for the best, and I knew it was, so I…  I signed the papers.”  _I signed the papers.  There was nothing else to do._   “I didn’t know what else to do!  You were suffering, and I _knew_ it.”  _I knew you were suffering.  I could feel it._   “I don’t know how I knew, but I could feel it.  I thought – I kept dreaming you were with me, telling me–”

Shock like ice jolted over Tony.  “Telling you what?”

Steve’s voice was a muffled moan against his leg.  “Don’t give up.  Don’t let go.”

_If you die, I die._

Maybe some things just happened.  Maybe somehow everything had been real in every way that mattered and the impossible was simply possible.  Maybe the unexplainable didn’t need to be explained and the incredible was just that: _incredible_.  He belonged with Steve.  Steve belonged with him.  “We go together,” Tony whispered.  “We’re two halves of the same heart, the same soul.”

Steve shivered, sobbing.  “But you told me it would be okay to let you go.  That you’d be okay.  So I had to do it, and I was so wrong.  _So wrong._  You could have died.  You _did_ die, and it was my fault because I was weak.  And I’m so sorry, Tony!  I’m so sorry!  I don’t know if you can forgive me.  I can’t forgive myself.  I – I – _please_ –”

Tony shook his head, tears rolling from his eyes, and smiled.  He felt warm, so warm, as Steve wept with silent sighs.  “Baby,” he whispered.  “ _Steve._   Look at me.”

It took a moment, some deep, measured breaths, but Steve eventually found the courage to lift his head.  His eyes were very blue, rimmed in red and full of tears, and his face was locked in a terrified grimace.  Tony cupped his jaw, carefully wiping his cheeks.  “You don’t need to apologize for anything.  You saved my life.”

Steve’s eyes welled anew and his lips quivered.  “No, no, Tony, I–”

“Yes,” Tony insisted.  “You saved my life.  And I saved yours.  We saved each other.”  Tony tugged him up more firmly, and pliantly Steve went.  Tony swept his thumb over his lower lip, staring into Steve’s eyes.  Steve’s eyes that he knew so well.  Steve’s face that he could see in perfect detail with his own eyes closed.  Steve’s heart that was his, and Steve’s soul that he knew as well as his own.  “Don’t you know?  I would have done the same.  Were our roles reversed, I know I would have done exactly what you did.”

Steve shook his head, reaching up to take Tony’s hand.  “There’s no way you could know that.”

Tony smiled.  “Yeah, there is.”  Steve was clearly confused, giving a small, reflexive jerk of his head.  “There is.  I… I can’t explain it, but I don’t need to.  I just…  I just _know._ ” _Things, even crazy things, happen for a reason._

“Tony…”

“Come here.”  He tugged Steve up more so their faces were level.  Leaning his forehead to Steve’s, he closed his eyes and breathed.  “We’ve spent enough time trying to hold onto each other, but we’re both here now.  Somehow, we’re both here.  I’m not going to ask why.  I don’t care.  All I know is I don’t _ever_ want to be apart from you again.”

Steve drew a deep breath, sliding his hands on either side of Tony’s neck, and nodded.  “No.  Never again.”

“So let’s go to bed.  Okay?”

Another deep breath.  Another nod.  “Okay.”

It was easy then, to lay down in their bed.  Steve helped him get there and then pulled the sheets and duvet up and over him.  Tony watched him as he closed the door and turned off the remaining lights.  He walked to the huge windows, and the evening glow washed over him like a halo.  Tony couldn’t help but stare, but the image faded as Steve drew the blinds.  He turned around and smiled, too.  He was beautiful and he was here and he was real.

And this was okay.  They’d both be okay.  There was nothing more important than that, than the connection between them.  It was strong, sure, perfect and powerful.  Steve slipped under the covers beside Tony, coming close, and he slunk down to curl around Tony’s hip and lay his arm over Tony’s middle.  Steve took his left hand, kissing each of his fingers and rubbing his thumb over Tony’s wedding ring before weaving their hands together.  He nuzzled his face into Tony’s neck.  Like this, just like before, all the times before, in dreams and wakefulness and everything in between, _like this_ Tony could feel Steve.  He could feel Steve’s warmth, the safety and splendor of that.  He could feel him breathing, slow and steady.  He could feel their hearts beating together like one.  “I love you, Tony,” Steve whispered.

_I love you, too._

**THE END**


End file.
